Charting the life course: Emerging opportunities to advance scientific approaches using life course research

Heidi A Hanson; Claire L Leiser; Gretchen Bandoli; Brad H Pollock; Margaret R Karagas; Daniel Armstrong; Ann Dozier; Nicole G Weiskopf; Maureen Monaghan; Ann M Davis; Elizabeth Eckstrom; Chunhua Weng; Jonathan N Tobin; Frederick Kaskel; Mark R Schleiss; Peter Szilagyi; Carrie Dykes; Dan Cooper; Shari L Barkin

doi:10.1017/cts.2020.492

Charting the life course: Emerging opportunities to advance scientific approaches using life course research

J Clin Transl Sci. 2020 Jun 15;5(1):e9. doi: 10.1017/cts.2020.492.

Authors

Heidi A Hanson^{1

2}, Claire L Leiser^{1

3}, Gretchen Bandoli⁴, Brad H Pollock⁵, Margaret R Karagas⁶, Daniel Armstrong⁷, Ann Dozier⁸, Nicole G Weiskopf⁹, Maureen Monaghan^{10

11}, Ann M Davis^{12

13}, Elizabeth Eckstrom¹⁴, Chunhua Weng¹⁵, Jonathan N Tobin^{16

17}, Frederick Kaskel¹⁸, Mark R Schleiss¹⁹, Peter Szilagyi²⁰, Carrie Dykes²¹, Dan Cooper²², Shari L Barkin²³

Affiliations

¹ Population Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
² Department of Surgery, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
³ Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
⁵ Department of Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
⁶ Department of Epidemiology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH, USA.
⁷ Department of Pediatrics, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA.
⁸ Public Health Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA.
⁹ Department of Biomedical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA.
¹⁰ Children's National Hospital, Washington, DC, USA.
¹¹ George Washington University School of Medicine, Washington, DC, USA.
¹² University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA.
¹³ Center for Children's Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition, Kansas City, MO, USA.
¹⁴ Division of General Internal Medicine & Geriatrics and Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁶ Center for Clinical and Translational Science, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁷ Clinical Directors Network (CDN), New York, NY, USA.
¹⁸ Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital at Montefiore, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
¹⁹ University of Minnesota Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
²⁰ Department of Pediatrics, UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
²¹ Clinical and Translational Science Institute, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA.
²² Institute for Clinical and Translational Science and Department of Pediatrics, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
²³ Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.

Abstract

Life course research embraces the complexity of health and disease development, tackling the extensive interactions between genetics and environment. This interdisciplinary blueprint, or theoretical framework, offers a structure for research ideas and specifies relationships between related factors. Traditionally, methodological approaches attempt to reduce the complexity of these dynamic interactions and decompose health into component parts, ignoring the complex reciprocal interaction of factors that shape health over time. New methods that match the epistemological foundation of the life course framework are needed to fully explore adaptive, multilevel, and reciprocal interactions between individuals and their environment. The focus of this article is to (1) delineate the differences between lifespan and life course research, (2) articulate the importance of complex systems science as a methodological framework in the life course research toolbox to guide our research questions, (3) raise key questions that can be asked within the clinical and translational science domain utilizing this framework, and (4) provide recommendations for life course research implementation, charting the way forward. Recent advances in computational analytics, computer science, and data collection could be used to approximate, measure, and analyze the intertwining and dynamic nature of genetic and environmental factors involved in health development.

Keywords: Translational life course research; complexity science; cytomegalovirus; life course and lifespan; life course methods; life course research priorities.

Abstract

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