Abstract
Developing and Training Epigenetic Clocks for Black and Latine Older Adult
Lauren Brown, PhD, USC
Epigenetic clocks are age predictors that capture biological heterogeneity in aging and inform our understanding of genetic, social, and environmental influences on disease risk; however, findings have been mixed across race/ethnic groups, reflecting the fact that existing clocks were largely trained in predominately European samples without consideration for the unique health and aging processes of other subgroups. The proposed project will use the 2016 Health and Retirement Study to (Aim 1) estimate DNAm-based age predictors specifically for Black and Latine older adults using Elastic Net and (Aim 2) compare their association with chronic health conditions to existing second-generation clocks trained in the full HRS sample. This pilot will demonstrate that the predictive capacity of epigenetic clocks can be improved for Black and Latine older adults by considering differences in the training samples.