NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING: A new frontier for prevention science: Reducing later life health risks associated with early environmental adversity using interventions at mid-life.

More than forty years of epidemiological research supports a link between exposure to an adverse childhood environment--including poverty, poor nutrition, child maltreatment --and liability to non-communicable disorders in adulthood such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Some of the earliest and strongest evidence links fetal malnutrition to worse adult health, with preventive intervention trials underway. Many childhood adversities go unrecognized or, if recognized, therapeutic services are neither well developed nor available. Some health consequences--apparent in early life--emerge later in the life-course, as a consequence of additional behavioral and biological challenges. Thus, research is urgently required on preventive interventions in adults. The National Institute on Aging, in collaboration with two UK Research Councils, is currently supporting a network that is reviewing research focusing on three questions. First, can we validly ascertain childhood adversity from information obtained in adulthood? Second, what specific attributes of childhood adversity have the most serious consequences for adult health and what biological and psychological mechanisms link adversity to health? Third, are adult behaviors and neural function sufficiently plastic in mid-life to allow for effective preventive interventions? The roundtable will review this work and explore the role of prevention science in framing etiological questions and designing effective interventions.