Health in later life is shaped by behavior and policies over the life course and reflects the differences between the societies in which we are ageing. This multidisciplinary book answers questions from all life course phases and its interconnections from a European perspective based on the most recent SHARE data, such as: How is our health related to personality traits and influenced by our childhood conditions and careers? Which role does our social network play? Which impacts of the different health care and societal regimes can we trace at older ages? Which are the differences and similarities across European countries?

This book shows the important links between social conditions and health and begins to describe the processes through which these health inequalities may be generated. It reviews a range of methodologies that could be used by health researchers in this field and proposes innovative future research directions.

This open access book examines health trajectories and health transitions at different stages of the life course, including childhood, adulthood and later life. It provides findings that assess the role of biological and social transitions on health status over time. The essays examine a wide range of health issues, including the consequences of military service on body mass index, childhood obesity and cardiovascular health, socio-economic inequalities in preventive health care use, depression and anxiety during the child rearing period, health trajectories and transitions in people with cystic fibrosis and oral health over the life course. The book addresses theoretical, empirical and methodological issues as well as examines different national contexts, which help to identify factors of vulnerability and potential resources that support resilience available for specific groups and/or populations. Health reflects the ability of individuals to adapt to their social environment. This book analyzes health as a dynamic experience. It examines how different aspects of individual health unfold over time as a result of aging but also in relation to changing socioeconomic conditions. It also offers readers potential insights into public policies that affect the health status of a population.

As the population of older Americans grows, it is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Differences in health by racial and ethnic status could be increasingly consequential for health policy and programs. Such differences are not simply a matter of education or ability to pay for health care. For instance, Asian Americans and Hispanics appear to be in better health, on a number of indicators, than White Americans, despite, on average, lower socioeconomic status. The reasons are complex, including possible roles for such factors as selective migration, risk behaviors, exposure to various stressors, patient attitudes, and geographic variation in health care. This volume, produced by a multidisciplinary panel, considers such possible explanations for racial and ethnic health differentials within an integrated framework. It provides a concise summary of available research and lays out a research agenda to address the many uncertainties in current knowledge. It recommends, for instance, looking at health differentials across the life course and deciphering the links between factors presumably producing differentials and biopsychosocial mechanisms that lead to impaired health.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. ​This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research agenda that proposes priorities for future LCHD research and its application to health care practice and health policy. Topics featured in the Handbook include: The prenatal period and its effect on child obesity and metabolic outcomes. Pregnancy complications and their effect on women’s cardiovascular health. A multi-level approach for obesity prevention in children. Application of the LCHD framework to autism spectrum disorder. Socioeconomic disadvantage and its influence on health development across the lifespan. The importance of nutrition to optimal health development across the lifespan. The Handbook of Life Course Health Development is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology/science; maternal and child health; social work; health economics; educational policy and politics; and medical law as well as many interrelated subdisciplines in psychology, medicine, public health, mental health, education, social welfare, economics, sociology, and law.

This comprehensive handbook synthesizes the often-fractured relationship between the study of biology and the study of society. Bringing together a compelling array of interdisciplinary contributions, the authors demonstrate how nuanced attention to both the biological and social sciences opens up novel perspectives upon some of the most significant sociological, anthropological, philosophical and biological questions of our era. The six sections cover topics ranging from genomics and epigenetics, to neuroscience and psychology to social epidemiology and medicine. The authors collaboratively present state-of-the-art research and perspectives in some of the most intriguing areas of what can be called biosocial and biocultural approaches, demonstrating how quickly we are moving beyond the acrimonious debates that characterized the border between biology and society for most of the twentieth century. This landmark volume will be an extremely valuable resource for scholars and practitioners in all areas of the social and biological sciences. The chapter 'Ten Theses on the Subject of Biology and Politics: Conceptual, Methodological, and Biopolitical Considerations' is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com. Versions of the chapters 'The Transcendence of the Social', 'Scrutinizing the Epigenetics Revolution', 'Species of Biocapital, 2008, and Speciating Biocapital, 2017' and 'Experimental Entanglements: Social Science and Neuroscience Beyond Interdisciplinarity' are available open access via third parties. For further information please see license information in the chapters or on link.springer.com.

From reviews of the previous edition:'We still have much to learn if disease patterns are to be explained by taking a life course approach... this book provides strong arguments for this approach... the book is a highly qualified starting point for the debate... it will remain a useful summary of pioneer research of huge potential importance for public health.' -Epidemiology'This is not just another epidemiology textbook. It is essential reading for anyone with an active mind who is interested in public health.' -Journal of Public Health Medicine'A truly exciting and extremely informative endeavour for anyone interested in the determinants of human health and disease. This discussion is at the core of current public health issues.' -European Journal of Public Health'The conclusion is of major importance to public health policy. It reinforces the need for a life course strategy, with attention being paid to the mother, baby, child adolescent, and elderly person.' -BMJ'Provokes thought about the origins of chronic diseases, suggests new approaches to identifying particular susceptible individuals and encourages the identification of optimal points in the life course for possible preventive interventions.' -Chronic Diseases in CanadaThe first edition in 1997 of A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology became a classic text for epidemiological and public health researchers interested in the childhood origins of adult chronic disease. Since then the new field of life course epidemiology has expanded rapidly, attracting the interest not only of academics across the health and social sciences but also policy makers, funding bodies, and the general public. Its purpose is to study how biological and social factors during gestation, childhood, adolescence and earlier adult life independently, cumulatively and interactively influence later life health and disease.Contributors to this fully revised second edition capture the excitement of the developing field and assess the latest evidence regarding sources of risk to health across the life course and across generations. The original chapters on life course influences on cardiovascular disease, diabetes, blood pressure, respiratory disease and cancer have been updated and extended. New chapters on life course influences on obesity, biological ageing and neuropsychiatric disorders have been added. Life course explanations for disease trends and for socioeconomic differentials in disease risk are given more attention in this new edition, reflecting recent developments in the field. The section on policy implications has been expanded, assessing the role of interventions to improve childhood social circumstances, as well as interventions to improve early growth. Emerging new research themes and the theoretical and methodological challenges facing life course epidemiology are highlighted.Readership: Epidemiologists, public health researchers, public health policy makers for developed and developing countries, sociologists and biologists, psychiatrists and social and chronic disease epidemiologists

Older Americans, even the oldest, can now expect to live years longer than those who reached the same ages even a few decades ago. Although survival has improved for all racial and ethnic groups, strong differences persist, both in life expectancy and in the causes of disability and death at older ages. This book examines trends in mortality rates and selected causes of disability (cardiovascular disease, dementia) for older people of different racial and ethnic groups. The determinants of these trends and differences are also investigated, including differences in access to health care and experiences in early life, diet, health behaviors, genetic background, social class, wealth and income. Groups often neglected in analyses of national data, such as the elderly Hispanic and Asian Americans of different origin and immigrant generations, are compared. The volume provides understanding of research bearing on the health status and survival of the fastest-growing segment of the American population.

Over 15 million children live in families subsisting below the federal poverty level, and there are nearly 4 million more children living in poverty today than in the turn of the 21st century. When compared to their more affluent counterparts, children living in fragile circumstances-including homeless children, children in foster care, and children living in families affected by chronic physical or mental health problems-are more likely to have low academic achievement, to drop out of school, and to have health and behavioral problems. The Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Child Development provides a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms through which socioeconomic, cultural, familial, and community-level factors impact the early and long-term cognitive, neurobiological, socio-emotional, and physical development of children living in poverty. Leading contributors from various disciplines review basic and applied multidisciplinary research and propose questions and answers regarding the short and long-term impact of poverty, contexts and policies on child developmental trajectories. In addition, the book features analyses involving diverse children of all ages, particularly those from understudied groups (e.g. Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, immigrants) and those from understudied geographic areas (e.g., the rural U.S; international humanitarian settings). Each of the 7 sections begins with an overview of basic biological and behavioral research on child development and poverty, followed by applied analyses of contemporary issues that are currently at the heart of public debates on child health and well-being, and concluded with suggestions for policy reform. Through collaborative, interdisciplinary research, this book identifies the most pressing scientific issues involving poverty and child development, and offers new ideas and research questions that could lead us to develop a new science of research that is multidisciplinary, longitudinal, and that embraces an ecological approach to the study of child development.

This timely and much-needed book addresses the demographic trends affecting the Latinos in the United States, Mexico and Latin America, looking at the health concerns and of this growing population, as it ages. Further examination of this previously understudied group– now the nation’s largest minority group – offers the possibility to promote healthy aging for the entire nation. As international immigration continues to increase, collections such as this are critical for understanding the social and health consequences of this immigration.