application) Why do some people die at 60, more (in most developed countries) at 80, and a few at 100? Why is the chance of dying at 80 rather than 60 increasing and the chance of dying at 100 rapidly increasing (albeit from a very low level)? How important are genetic vs. environmental, behavioral, and medical factors in determining how long an individual will live? It might be expected that the answers to these questions--and the determinants of longevity more generally--are well understood. Surprisingly little, however, is known. The continuation of this program of demographic research on the oldest-old focuses on mechanisms and determinants of survival and longevity. The theoretical foundation that underlies the research and the conceptual framework that ties the various projects together are derived from the perspectives and methods of demography. The research program emphasizes demographic research on the genetic and non-genetic determinants of longevity, including research on the interaction between fertility and mortality and research on why age-specific mortality decelerates with age. Data from longitudinal surveys of thousands of elderly Danish twins and more than 10,000 Chinese oetogenanans, nonagenanans, and centenarians will be gaffiered and analyzed. Biodemographic experiments on the mechanisms and determinants of longevity will be conducted on several model species, inncluding Ceratifis capitam, Drosophila melanogaster, Melonoplus sanguinpes, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Plantago lanceolata. New demographic and statistical methods of survival analysis will be developed and applied to analyze these data. The data will be released as public-use files.
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