Chronic Disease Models
We discuss the need for multidimensional stochastic models of physiological processes to describe the evolving risk of chronic disease over a lifetime. Modifications of that type of model needed to describe different types of risk factor and health effects collected in different longitudinal studies are described. How health processes are “captured” in different longitudinal study designs is discussed, as is the description of the intra-individual dynamics of degenerative processes. The concept of hormesis is introduced as are more standard types of hazard models (Weibull and Gompertz) drawn from reliability theory. Measurements that may be made in molecular epidemiological studies are discussed and issues that they raise for statistical modeling of disease processes reviewed. Methods for analyzing the genetic contributions to chronic disease risks are presented and discussed.
