Journal article
Neighborhood Disadvantage and Biological Aging: Using Marginal Structural Models to Assess the Link Between Neighborhood Census Variables and Epigenetic Aging
The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, Vol.74(7), pp.e50-e59
09/15/2019
DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbx015
PMID: 28329838
Abstract
Abstract Objectives Past research has reported an association between neighborhood disadvantage and healthy aging, but most of these studies utilize self-report measures of health or physical functioning and do not properly account for neighborhood selection effects, creating concerns regarding inflated associations. To overcome these limitations and provide a more stringent estimate of effects, the current study investigated the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on aging using newly developed epigenetic methods to assess rate of biological aging and marginal structural modeling (MSM) to account for potential confounds due to neighborhood selection. Methods We tested the hypothesis that neighborhood disadvantage accelerates aging using U.S. census data and five waves of interview data from a sample of 100 middle-aged African American women. Using a recently developed epigenetic index of aging, biological age was measured using weighted methylation values at 71 CpG sites. We calculated a measure of accelerated methylomic aging (in years) based upon the residual scores resulting from a regression of methylomic age on chronological age. Results Controlling for a variety of individual difference factors that could be confounded with neighborhood effects, including various health behaviors, neighborhood disadvantage was associated with accelerated biological aging. Using MSM to account for selection effects, a standard deviation increase in neighborhood disadvantage accelerated aging an average of 9 months. Conclusions Our findings converge with prior work to provide strong evidence that neighborhood context is a significant determinant of healthy aging.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Neighborhood Disadvantage and Biological Aging: Using Marginal Structural Models to Assess the Link Between Neighborhood Census Variables and Epigenetic Aging
- Creators
- Man-Kit Lei - Center for Family Research, Department of Sociology, University of GeorgiaRonald L Simons - Department of Sociology, University of GeorgiaSteven R H Beach - Center for Family ResearchRobert A Philibert - Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa
- Contributors
- Philippa Clarke (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, Vol.74(7), pp.e50-e59
- DOI
- 10.1093/geronb/gbx015
- PMID
- 28329838
- ISSN
- 1079-5014
- eISSN
- 1758-5368
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000025, name: National Institute of Mental Health, award: R01 MH62699, R01MH080898, R01MH60666; DOI: 10.13039/100000050, name: National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute, award: R01HL118045; name: Center for Translation and Prevention Science, award: P30 DA027827; DOI: 10.13039/100000026, name: National Institute on Drug Abuse
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 09/15/2019
- Academic Unit
- Roy J. Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering; Psychiatry; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984003454402771
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