Social class differences in mortality, morbidity and health functioning persist in the United States, the United Kingdom and other industrialized countries. Indeed, they may be widening for mortality. Such socioeconomic status (SES) gradients in health are present throughout the lifespan persisting into the eighth decade. Changes of health with age are heterogeneous with important environmental determinants, which include SES. This project will determine patterns and determinants of change of health in relation to age and SES. Further, it will examine whether the causes and consequences of within-person changes of health with age are different from those of a single measure. In the British civil service there is an unexplained threefold higher mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the lowest compared to the highest employment grade. The broad long term objective of the Whitehall II study is to explain the socioeconomic differences in health. With the help of NIH support, the Whitehall II study of 10,308 male and female civil servants, aged 35-55 years at entry (1985-88) was established to examine the role of specific psychosocial, lifestyle, biochemical and physiological factors as possible explanations of these inequalities. True age related changes in these exposures and/or cumulative exposure measured longitudinally are hypothesized to predict changes in SES differences in health with age. Support is requested to address the following aims: 1) to describe and explain patterns of change with age in health status in relation to SES; 2) to examine potential biochemical mediators of the relation between SES, psychosocial factors and CVD; and 3) to examine the relationship between SES and change in cognitive function with age. The Whitehall II study is uniquely poised to address these questions, offering: civil service grade as an excellent measure of SES; longitudinal design with participants comparatively young at entry, allowing the detection of antecedents of change; a wide range of exposure data; repeated measures of exposures and outcomes; substantial power to detect age-related change and its interaction with SES; wide range of health outcomes including health and cognitive functioning, components of the metabolic syndrome, mortality, non-fatal diagnoses and sickness absence. This proposal requests support for data collection only, to repeat outcome measures of health functioning, cognitive functioning and components of the metabolic syndrome.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01AG013196-03
Application #
2683159
Study Section
Behavioral Medicine Study Section (BEM)
Project Start
1996-04-01
Project End
1999-03-31
Budget Start
1998-09-30
Budget End
1999-03-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
1998
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of London Institute of Neurology
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
London
State
Country
United Kingdom
Zip Code
de Keijzer, Carmen; Tonne, Cathryn; Basagaña, Xavier et al. (2018) Residential Surrounding Greenness and Cognitive Decline: A 10-Year Follow-up of the Whitehall II Cohort. Environ Health Perspect 126:077003
Tanaka, Akihiro; Shipley, Martin J; Welch, Catherine A et al. (2018) Socioeconomic inequality in recovery from poor physical and mental health in mid-life and early old age: prospective Whitehall II cohort study. J Epidemiol Community Health 72:309-313
Tynkkynen, Juho; Chouraki, Vincent; van der Lee, Sven J et al. (2018) Association of branched-chain amino acids and other circulating metabolites with risk of incident dementia and Alzheimer's disease: A prospective study in eight cohorts. Alzheimers Dement 14:723-733
Mortensen, Jesper; Dich, Nadya; Lange, Theis et al. (2018) Weekly hours of informal caregiving and paid work, and the risk of cardiovascular disease. Eur J Public Health 28:743-747
Akbaraly, Tasnime; Würtz, Peter; Singh-Manoux, Archana et al. (2018) Association of circulating metabolites with healthy diet and risk of cardiovascular disease: analysis of two cohort studies. Sci Rep 8:8620
O'Neill, Dara; Britton, Annie; Hannah, Mary K et al. (2018) Association of longitudinal alcohol consumption trajectories with coronary heart disease: a meta-analysis of six cohort studies using individual participant data. BMC Med 16:124
Mein, Gill; Grant, Robert (2018) A cross-sectional exploratory analysis between pet ownership, sleep, exercise, health and neighbourhood perceptions: the Whitehall II cohort study. BMC Geriatr 18:176
Fleischmann, Maria; Carr, Ewan; Stansfeld, Stephen A et al. (2018) Can favourable psychosocial working conditions in midlife moderate the risk of work exit for chronically ill workers? A 20-year follow-up of the Whitehall II study. Occup Environ Med 75:183-190
Akbaraly, Tasnime; Sexton, Claire; Zsoldos, Enik? et al. (2018) Association of Long-Term Diet Quality with Hippocampal Volume: Longitudinal Cohort Study. Am J Med 131:1372-1381.e4
Abell, Jessica G; Kivimäki, Mika; Dugravot, Aline et al. (2018) Association between systolic blood pressure and dementia in the Whitehall II cohort study: role of age, duration, and threshold used to define hypertension. Eur Heart J 39:3119-3125

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