Frontiers in Public Health (May 2020)
Special Report: The Biology of Inequalities in Health: The Lifepath Consortium
- Paolo Vineis,
- Mauricio Avendano-Pabon,
- Henrique Barros,
- Mel Bartley,
- Cristian Carmeli,
- Luca Carra,
- Marc Chadeau-Hyam,
- Giuseppe Costa,
- Cyrille Delpierre,
- Angelo D'Errico,
- Silvia Fraga,
- Graham Giles,
- Graham Giles,
- Graham Giles,
- Marcel Goldberg,
- Michelle Kelly-Irving,
- Mika Kivimaki,
- Benoit Lepage,
- Thierry Lang,
- Richard Layte,
- Frances MacGuire,
- Johan P. Mackenbach,
- Michael Marmot,
- Cathal McCrory,
- Roger L. Milne,
- Roger L. Milne,
- Roger L. Milne,
- Peter Muennig,
- Wilma Nusselder,
- Dusan Petrovic,
- Silvia Polidoro,
- Fulvio Ricceri,
- Fulvio Ricceri,
- Oliver Robinson,
- Silvia Stringhini,
- Marie Zins
Affiliations
- Paolo Vineis
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
- Mauricio Avendano-Pabon
- Department of Social Sciences, Health and Medicine, King's College London, London, United Kingdom
- Henrique Barros
- EPIUnit – Institute of Public Health University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
- Mel Bartley
- Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- Cristian Carmeli
- Center for Primary Care and Public Health (UNISANTE), University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Luca Carra
- Zadig, Milan, Italy
- Marc Chadeau-Hyam
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
- Giuseppe Costa
- Department of Clinical Science & Biology, Turin University Medical School, Turin, Italy
- Cyrille Delpierre
- UMR LEASP, Université de Toulouse III, UPS, Inserm, Toulouse, France
- Angelo D'Errico
- Department of Epidemiology, ASL TO3, Turin, Italy
- Silvia Fraga
- EPIUnit – Institute of Public Health University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
- Graham Giles
- 0Cancer Epidemiology Division, Cancer Council Victoria, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Graham Giles
- 1Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Graham Giles
- 2Precision Medicine, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Marcel Goldberg
- 3UMS 011 Inserm - UVSQ ≪ Cohortes épidémiologiques en population ≫, Villejuif, France
- Michelle Kelly-Irving
- UMR LEASP, Université de Toulouse III, UPS, Inserm, Toulouse, France
- Mika Kivimaki
- 4Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- Benoit Lepage
- UMR LEASP, Université de Toulouse III, UPS, Inserm, Toulouse, France
- Thierry Lang
- UMR LEASP, Université de Toulouse III, UPS, Inserm, Toulouse, France
- Richard Layte
- 5Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- Frances MacGuire
- 4Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- Johan P. Mackenbach
- 6Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands
- Michael Marmot
- 4Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- Cathal McCrory
- 7Department of Medical Gerontology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- Roger L. Milne
- 0Cancer Epidemiology Division, Cancer Council Victoria, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Roger L. Milne
- 1Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Roger L. Milne
- 2Precision Medicine, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
- Peter Muennig
- 8Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States
- Wilma Nusselder
- 6Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands
- Dusan Petrovic
- Center for Primary Care and Public Health (UNISANTE), University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Silvia Polidoro
- 9Molecular Epidemiology and Exposomics Unit, Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine, Turin, Italy
- Fulvio Ricceri
- Department of Clinical Science & Biology, Turin University Medical School, Turin, Italy
- Fulvio Ricceri
- Department of Epidemiology, ASL TO3, Turin, Italy
- Oliver Robinson
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
- Silvia Stringhini
- 0Unit of Population Epidemiology, Division of Primary Care, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland
- Marie Zins
- 3UMS 011 Inserm - UVSQ ≪ Cohortes épidémiologiques en population ≫, Villejuif, France
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00118
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 8
Abstract
Funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 programme, the Lifepath research consortium aimed to investigate the effects of socioeconomic inequalities on the biology of healthy aging. The main research questions included the impact of inequalities on health, the role of behavioral and other risk factors, the underlying biological mechanisms, the efficacy of selected policies, and the general implications of our findings for theories and policies. The project adopted a life-course and comparative approach, considering lifetime effects from childhood and adulthood, and pooled data on up to 1.7 million participants of longitudinal cohort studies from Europe, USA, and Australia. These data showed that socioeconomic circumstances predicted mortality and functional decline as strongly as established risk factors currently targeted by global prevention programmes. Analyses also looked at socioeconomically patterned biological markers, allostatic load, and DNA methylation using richly phenotyped cohorts, unraveling their association with aging processes across the life-course. Lifepath studies suggest that socioeconomic circumstances are embedded in our biology from the outset—i.e., disadvantage influences biological systems from molecules to organs. Our findings have important implications for policy, suggesting that (a) intervening on unfavorable socioeconomic conditions is complementary and as important as targeting well-known risk factors, such as tobacco and alcohol consumption, low fruit and vegetable intake, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, and that (b) effects of preventive interventions in early life integrate interventions in adulthood. The report has an executive summary that refers to the different sections of the main paper.
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