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$1.7 Million Aging Study to Look at How Early Choices in Work-life and Health Habits Affect Later Health

	Jody L. Sindelar, Ph.D., Professor and Head of the Health Policy Administration Division at the Yale School of Public Health, is Principal Investigator and Project Director on a National Institute on Aging grant that will study the affect of early work-life choices and health habits later on in life.

A new 4-year, $1.7 million grant has been awarded to Yale University by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to fund a study examining how early choices in work-life, such as choice of occupation, and health habits, including the initiation of smoking, drinking, and obesity, can have durable effects and thus can affect health later in life.

The study, entitled “Work-life, Health Habits, and Health: Longitudinal Analysis of Aging”, began March 2006 and will continue through February 2010. The project research team will be led by Jody L. Sindelar, Ph.D., who is Principal Investigator and Project Director.

“Everyone aspires to a long and healthy life”, says Sindelar, professor and head of the division of Health Policy and Administration at the Yale School of Public Health, (YSPH) “however, policy-makers and others do not know precisely how to guide populations toward successful aging. A better understanding of the complicated processes that affect health over the life cycle would aid in developing such guidance. Particularly useful would be a clearer understanding of key factors that can be influenced by public and private policy.”

Sindelar says that the study will focus on work-life and health habits as key determinants of health and examine how they interact with health over the life course. “Since much of life is spent working, characteristics of work are potentially important risk factors and can be viewed in the same vein as health habits.”

The overall aim of the study is to examine the dynamic interplay over the life-cycle among work-life, health habits, and health outcomes. Researchers will build a life-cycle model using several longitudinal datasets covering the age range from adolescence to late life. This model will assess associations and potential multi-directional causality among these factors.

This study is funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging.

Co-researchers and co-investigators on this study include Tracy Falba, Ph.D., associate research scientist at YSPH, William Gallo, Ph.D., associate research scientist at YSPH and Mark Cullen, M.D., Director of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health and professor of internal medicine and public health at Yale University School of Medicine's Department of Internal Medicine.