How Scientists Track Early-Life Risks to Decode Late-Life Disease

A methodological review in SSM - Population Health argues that key risks for dementia and other late-life diseases are often established decades earlier, from the womb through childhood and midlife. Led by Eleanor Hayes-Larson and Katrina Kezios and developed through the Gateway Exposome Coordinating Center, it lays out data strategies researchers can use to study lifecourse exposures. The paper highlights the main obstacle: an ideal dataset would prospectively capture all exposures, outcomes, and covariates across life with high timing detail and low attrition—something no existing cohort provides. It organizes approaches including birth cohort studies, data linkages, late-life retrospective measures, and combined age-overlapping cohorts. The review notes birth cohorts’ long timelines and profiles examples like New Zealand’s Dunedin study.