Benjamin P. Chapman, Ph.D. - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In this K08 Mentored Career Development Award application, Ben Chapman, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), proposes to integrate approaches from personality psychology and social epidemiology to study socioeconomically (SES) based health disparities across the latter part of life. Proposed are a comprehensive educational plan, original data collection, and secondary analyses of existing datasets designed to equip the applicant to become a leading investigator of how the social stratification in lifespan health trajectories is influenced by individual personality. He will receive formal training in social epidemiology, health and aging, and multilevel statistics through formal coursework and mentored didactics with a team of nationally recognized experts in these areas. Dr. Chapman's research program proposes two scientific aims, based on a synthesis of theory and findings from social epidemiology and personality and health, under a conceptual framework of life course epidemiology. The Aims examine the interaction between personality and SES factors influencing health behaviors and general illness burden across the second half of life. New data collection focuses on how personality influences health under conditions of socioeconomic deprivation, involving 18-24 month follow up of a pilot cohort (N=106) of ethnically diverse, lower SES middle age and older adults currently being accrued. This will provide Dr. Chapman with valuable experience following a small cohort over a short time, in preparation for larger studies, and obtain health data rare in existing data sources, like inflammatory biomarkers. Existing data sources are selected for longitudinal information on personality, SES, and health, permitting well-powered hypothesis tests over the Midlife Development in the US, Hawaii Culture and Health, and Older Adults in Primary Care studies. From a public health view, lifespan health is powerfully tied to social inequalities;but not all disadvantaged people suffer worse, and not all advantaged people enjoy better health as they age. Attention to individual psychological and behavioral dispositions can aid understanding of this heterogeneity. Blending personality and social epidemiology will better illuminate the interface between person and social structure in healthy aging.

Project Summary Some have proposed that SES inequalities in mortality can be explained by the influence of individual traits upon both later SES and mortality. This so-called ?indirect selection? model has far-reaching implications not only for social theory, but also for public policy. Vigorous debate exists over whether policies should treat health as a matter of personal responsibility dependent upon traits such as Conscientiousness and IQ, or as a matter of social responsibility dependent upon socioeconomic factors outside the individual's control. However, converging strands of theory suggest that the standard version of the indirect selection model may be overly simplistic in at least three respects. First, the ?brute luck? of socioeconomic circumstances at birth likely influences not only later SES, but also individual traits. The strength of this influence likely explains some of the apparent role personality and IQ seem to play in explaining associations between adulthood SES and earlier mortality. Second, key pathways in the indirect selection model likely vary across both gender and race/ethnicity. Institutional barriers may reduce the economic and health benefits of meritocratic traits among women, minorities, and those growing up within limited opportunity structures. Third, many argue that the measurement of IQ (and possibly personality) is systematically biased across social class and race. If true, the apparent role of traits in SES and race differences in mortality could be spuriously inflated or systematically distorted. We have carefully set the stage for a 55-year mortality follow-up of over 94,000 members of Project Talent--a national cohort sampled during high school in 1960, and again when they were on average 29-30 years old. The sample is unprecedented in combining national US scope with depth of psychological measurement. Detailed information exists on the childhood SES of participants, cognitive ability and personality in high school, and attained SES by age 29-30. We also leverage unique aspects of the cohort's historical context?Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty?in exploratory questions on static and changing local economic opportunity structure and institutionalized racial discrimination. Our mortality data-collection approximates the end of the natural life expectancy of the PT cohort (age 72-73), allowing us to focus on premature mortality--arguably, the most sensitive barometers of health inequalities. Our team features a mix of experts from personality and sociology (including the PT Survey Director), includes a minority health expert and historian, and is led by a PI who has focused on these issues for the past several years. Our project is thus poised to test and refine pivotal au currant conjectures about the role personality and IQ may play in social mortality inequalities.

Alzheimer?s Disease and Alzheimer?s related dementias (ADRD) are now regarded as a public health problem of pressing importance. While the race for disease-altering treatments continues, another strand of work has focused on identifying social and psychological precursors of these conditions. Such biopsychosocial risks often can be traced back to phases of life that predate symptom onset by years or decades. Therefore, a robust social and life course epidemiology of ADRD requires study designs that feature a) broad and deep psychosocial characterization of b) a large, population-relevant cohort c) during early phases of life, with d) medically-documented outcome data. Parent project R01AG053155 features a) through c), specifically in 90,000 members of the Project Talent cohort assessed in 1960 and again in 1970-74. The current supplement expands its scope to all members of Project Talent baseline (roughly 340,000) from 1960, and focuses on two scientific aims. The first seeks to estimate the relative risk of ADRD by the early 70s arising from adolescent personality traits, as documented in Medicare data linked to the cohort. One key feature of this aim is to determine if aspects of personality in adolescence are associated with ADRD incidence in later life independently of adolescent IQ, which is a known predictor. The second key aspect of this aim is to use the size and population representativeness of the sample to derive reasonably precise population-relevant effect size estimates of personality relative risks, and compare these effect sizes to benchmark risk estimates of adolescent IQ and socioeconomic status, which are considered to have policy and public health significance. The second aim also leverages the size and scope of the sample to identify personality traits which may moderate the ADRD risk of low adolescent IQ, in more complex and realistic patterns than can be studied in smaller or less representative data sets. This is accomplished via machine learning methods focused on identifying non-linear interactions via intensive cross-validation, another scientific question that takes full advantage of the size and scope of this unique cohort.