Application of life course approach on oral epidemiology

Abstract

The traditional aetiological models for adult chronic disease during the second half of twentieth century that mainly emphasized on current adult lifestyle factors, such as cigarette smoking, diet and reduction of physical activity have been challenged by growing evidence which declared that progression of chronic disease begin in early life or the disease affected by the poor birth weight, prenatal infection, poor nutrition, and social and psychosocial disadvantage in early life. This relatively new research field is called life course epidemiology. Life course epidemiology is the study of the long term effects of early-life’s adverse/protective exposures or experience on individual’s health outcome and disease risk in later life. This paper aims to introduce the overall concept and theoretical models of this new epidemiology approach and to discuss the application of life course approach on the chronic oral disease.

传统成人慢性疾病的病因学研究在20世纪后半叶着重于成人吸烟、饮食和缺乏运动等生活方式方面，但是这种成人生活方式模型面临着许多挑战。越来越多的研究证据表明，慢性疾病（包括口腔疾病）的发生发展受到儿童低出生体质量、早期感染和营养不良以及早期社会学和社会心理学等方面因素的影响。生命历程方法研究生命早期阶段的暴露因素对个人整个生命历程中的健康或疾病状况所产生的长期影响。本文详细介绍了生命历程流行病学的概念和研究领域中的理论模型，并且对生命历程方法在口腔流行病学中的应用作出了讨论和分析。