Life‐course epidemiology: concepts and theoretical models and its relevance to chronic oral conditions

Abstract

Etiological models that predominantly emphasize current adult life styles, such as smoking, diet and lack of exercise have recently been seriously challenged by a growing body of evidence that disturbed early growth and development, childhood infection, poor nutrition, and social and psychosocial disadvantage across the life-course affect chronic disease risk, including chronic oral disease. This relatively new area of research is called life-course epidemiology. The life-course framework for investigating the aetiology and natural history of chronic disease proposes that advantages and disadvantages are accumulated throughout life generating differentials in health along the life-course, but most importantly later in life. Furthermore, its dynamic framework brings together the effects of intrinsic factors (individual resources) with extrinsic factors (environmental factors). The aim of this paper is to give an overview of this new epidemiological approach and to discuss how the life-course framework has been applied to chronic oral conditions.

Uso de serviços odontológicos por rotina entre idosos brasileiros: Projeto SB Brasil

“…Apesar desse panorama de demandas odontológicas acumuladas ao longo da vida 7 , no Brasil, é baixo o relato de uso dos serviços odontoló-gicos por idosos, uma vez que 6% relataram nunca terem utilizado os serviços odontológicos, que somente 17% utilizaram os serviços há menos de um ano, que 11% utilizaram entre um e dois anos e que 66% o fizeram há três ou mais anos 8 .…”

A Life Course Perspective on Health Trajectories and Transitions

“…As will be outlined in this chapter, oral diseases are ideal for the application of life course epidemiological research (Nicolau et al 2007b). They are cumulative and chronic in nature, relatively common across the population and can be measured with good accuracy.…”

Inequality of Oral Health in a Life-Course Perspective

“…Pearce et al, 2004 studied the effect of birth-weight, early diet, use of comforter and social status on oral health of young adults, but found only effect of social status in the expected direction. Nicolau and co-workers found a relationship between several biological factors and caries among adolescents (Nicolau et al, 2003(Nicolau et al, , 2007. A second line of research assumes biological programming during critical periods of development either during pregnancy or in early life (Barker, 1994).…”