Biodemography: Research prospects and directions

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this opinion report is to outline what I consider to be the most promising areas for future biodemographic research and to suggest ways in which the field can be moved forward. I suggest ideas grouped around five major themes including biodemography of disability, ecological, developmental, behavioral and evolutionary biodemography, biodemography of sociality, genomic and genetic biodemography, and biodemographic modeling and analysis. At the end I briefly discuss biodemography in both interdisciplinary and epistemological contexts. 1. Introduction Biodemography as an emerging discipline at the interface of biology and demography is unique in at least two respects (Carey & Vaupel 2005). First, it is one of a small number of subdisciplines arising from the social sciences that has embraced biology (e.g. evolutionary psychology; neuroeconomics). However, unlike the others which focus more narrowly on biological sub-areas (neurology) or concepts (evolution), biodemography has no explicit biological boundaries thus making it not only a more all-encompassing interdisciplinary concept, but also one that has deeper biological roots. Second, the hierarchical organizations that are inherent to both biology (cell, organ, individual) and demography (individual, cohort, population) form a chain in which the individual serves as the link between the lower mechanistic levels and the higher functional levels. Biodemography is thus ideally suited to complement, engage and inform research on human aging through theory building using mathematical and statistical modeling, hypothesis testing using experimental methods, and coherence-seeking using genetics and evolutionary concepts. In short, biodemography serves as both a looking glass through which researchers in the social and biological sciences can see each other's worlds, and a Rosetta stone for interdisciplinary communication and cooperation. Research in the biological-demographic hybrid-zone has been neglected due partly to the conservatism that is inherent to science, and partly to differences between the two paradigms (and thus in the questions asked). 2. Promising areas of biodemographic research The main challenge in formulating research policy for biodemography is to develop a strategy that balances the need to build on its main historical strengths and at the same time support novel, creative, and, at times, high-risk research that may point the field in exciting new directions. A useful strategy for developing a research agenda in biodemography would be one which involves aging as the main but not sole organizational concept, which expands the scope to engage new topics, invites new researchers, integrates research at mechanistic and functional levels as well as in laboratory and field contexts, and uses genetics and modeling as cross-cutting themes. In this section I describe five thematic areas, the characteristics of which are consistent with these general guidelines just described. The grouping of many of the example topics within a thematic area is arbitrary. 2.1 Biodemography of disability Inasmuch as whole organisms are highly, intricately, and precisely integrated networks of entities and interactions, any disruption in either the design or the components will disrupt the whole and thus decrease the quality of life and increase the likelihood of death. Whereas understanding underlying mechanisms is the central focus in research on the biology of aging with death as the singular end point, understanding function in daily life is the main focus of research on disabilities with loss of function(s) as the endpoint(s). Thus the results of research on the biodemography of disabilities will complement research in health demography (Lamb & Siegel 2004). Biodemographic research concerned with disabilities is an important new area of research not only because experiments on impairment using model animals (insects) will shed light on universal properties and characteristics of disablement processes that are relevant to disabilities in humans, but also because the results of impairment research on non-human species will provide depth, context, and scope for studies in ecology, evolution and behavior. …