Professor of public health gets grant to study in utero effects on male and female lifespans

Tim Bruckner, Ph.D., professor of health, society and behavior in the Program in Public Health, has been awarded a two-year, $450,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging to study the differences in male and female lifespans. According to health data, men do not live as long as women, and Bruckner and his team will investigate whether this is due to conditions in the womb during pregnancy. Analyzing more than 1.7 million records from the Utah Population Database of men and women born between 1850 and 1940, the researchers will examine variations in male frailty across time, with a particular focus on such environmental stressors as the 1918 flu pandemic, the Great Depression and drought. These events may have affected males in utero and shaped their health over their lifetime. Bruckner said he expects the team’s findings to meet the NIA’s goal of better understanding disparities in male/female health and disease at older ages, as well as offer insights into the biological and social bases of lifespan differences.