NIA has entered into a contract with the National Academy of Sciences? Committee on Population to execute a project plan, developed using FY2012 support, to promote and advance the field of biodemography by expanding it conceptually to include cross-species comparisons of social environments, social behaviors, and their effects on health, longevity, and life histories. Biodemography, the integration of demographic and biological theory and methods, provides an innovative tool for understanding the impact of aging on health and longevity. NIH-funded grants in this field have used both observational and experimental approaches to expand understanding of life histories and the rate of senescence, including trade-offs between fertility and mortality, the role of intergenerational transfers in shaping life histories from humans and other social animals, and sex and population differentials in late-life frailty and mortality rates. A series of NAS workshops dating back twenty years has been instrumental in encouraging this interdisciplinary field. The FY2013 plan calls for a workshop, chaired by Maxine Weinstein on April 8-9th 2014 and a publication summarizing the workshop.
