Differential development of health in a life-span perspective

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Abstract
The area of research suggested in the title covers both descriptive and analytical epidemiology. The challenge for descriptive studies is to demonstrate in a valid and representative manner the variance among individuals or groups of individuals in health-related issues at any one time, and to describe alterations in health status over extended periods of time. This makes it possible to study interindividual variation in longitudinal health patterns. In the analytical studies, the aim is to explain this variation in terms of environmental or genetic exposures. The focus in this presentation is on methods for empirical research in analytic epidemiology. Some alternative designs will briefly be discussed, but the main emphasis will be placed on data linkage studies employing data from a population-based medical birth register in Norway.The analytical designs can be roughly divided into ecological studies, cross-sectional studies, and longitudinal studies (or cohort studies) of individuals or groups of individuals.Let us first briefly look at how, in the lack of individual data, ecological approaches have been used to examine differential development of health in a life-span perspective. Mortality has a long tradition for being used as an indicator of health when one has to rely on vital statistics or other routinely collected health data. The relative development of mortality (be it crude, disease specific, or age and sex specific) over time can be of interest to use as the basis for comparison between areas or populations.

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