Understanding the determinants of aging and longevity: the influence of the social environment, biology, and heritability throughout the life course

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the heterogeneity in patterns of aging and the factors throughout the life course that shape them. By focusing on variability within the population we are able to advance our knowledge of how circumstances throughout the life course affect the way individuals age. We find that the paths to disease and longevity are diverse and that the social environment plays an important role in shaping these patterns. Our results support a wide body of literature showing that morbidity is not an inevitable consequence of aging, even in the oldest old population. Health status and longevity are shaped by the historical circumstances and social environments that we live in. This study offers three innovative and significant contributions to the understanding of biological and environmental determinants of aging by (1) disentangling the biological and temporal sources of trends in cancer incidence among the elderly, (2) investigating the possible social and physiological effects of fertility history on comorbidity trajectories after age 65, and (3) studying heterogeneity in the heritable contributions to variation in longevity across early life family and social environments.