Research on aging is increasingly focused on life cycle models of social and biological factors associated with the development of chronic diseases. This requires information about early life conditions that can be collected from respondents at older ages. Completed height is often used as a measure of child health and nutrition. One component of height, leg length, appears to reflect child growth after age 1 and may be associated with later risks of chronic disease. Studies in Britain show shorter leg length is associated with high mortality at the older ages. A large study in the U.S. did not find any evidence of this. We hypothesize that leg length will be more closely associated with health and mortality in populations with the shortest average heights in which variations in frame size are dominated by environmental factors rather than genetics. We will test this using data from four populations with different body frames and health patterns: non-Hispanic whites, African-Americans Hispanics, and Japanese-Americans.
This research will examine the importance of impaired growth and development during childhood as risk factors for chronic diseases among older adults using two components of adult height. Leg length reflects growth between ages 1 year and puberty;trunk length is more reflective of birth length. This research will demonstrate the long-term consequences of childhood under-nutrition and disease and thereby emphasize the importance of child health programs.
