Grant: Project Grant

This project aims to provide crucial insights into how socioeconomic conditions throughout life influence the aging process and contribute to health disparities in later years. Aging outcomes-such as functional decline, disease onset, and biological aging-vary significantly across individuals, with those exposed to adverse socioeconomic conditions, such as poverty or low education, facing a greater risk of poor health as they age. From as early as conception, disadvantaged individuals are more likely to experience faster biological aging, more frequent diseases, and reduced functional capacity in old age. While much research has explored how lifestyle and behavioral factors (like smoking or diet) contribute to these disparities, the cumulative impact of environmental factors-such as pollution, poor housing, and lack of access to green spaces-remains underexplored. Moreover, little is known about the protective factors that enable some individuals exposed to lifelong social adversity to age more healthily than others. This four-year project will draw on data from six population cohorts across five countries, representing nearly 350'000 individuals. Our objectives are to assess how social and economic conditions from childhood through adulthood shape biological and functional ageing, uncover the environmental pathways (for example, air pollution and neighbourhood design) that explain these differences, and estimate which realistic policy and lifestyle changes could most reduce unequal ageing. By leveraging international and cross-cohort comparisons, this project will provide valuable evidence on how diverse social, cultural, and economic contexts influence aging. This approach will also enable us to compare countries with different social policies, allowing for a better understanding of which protective factors or policies mitigate the negative effects of socioeconomic adversity.