Health, disease, and mortality risks at older ages

Our collective research is increasingly grounded in biologic processes that are expressed as agespecific symptoms, conditions, and ultimately cause‐specific mortality risks, which points us to integrating health research, embodied in the 1st theme [Health, disease, mortality] and the 4th [SES, environmental and behavioral aspects of co‐morbidities] although the variable expression of this approach depends on the disciplinary background of our Associates. We deliberately relate morbidity and mortality research to their biologic underpinnings in at least two ways: Researchers in the medical or epidemiologic tradition assume a direct linkage between risk factor and outcome. This approach dominates the work of Alley, Armstrong, Cannuscio, Chang, Chao, Volpp, and Trojanowski . The second way that biologic factors influence our work is by rationalizing cohort and period effects on morbidity and mortality. A prime example of this approach is Preston’s research on how sex differentials in the timing of peak smoking prevalence subsequently affect diverging male‐female trends in mortality (Preston and Wang 2006).4 His new work on deciphering US‐EU differentials in prostate cancer mortality emphasize the variable diffusion of PSA screening in the two regions. Preston also has a recent paper extending this approach to how cohort reproductive patterns affect subsequent trends in breast cancer mortality (Krueger and Preston 2008).