Approved Research

Risk factors and biomarkers of resilience in general population.

Lay summary

Resilience, the ability to resist decline or recover function after adverse effects of a stressor, has attracted increasingly attentions and been recognized as a fundamental determinant of clinical outcomes. It was proposed as the ability to mobilize physiological reserves, and expected to decline in ageing process. We will: 1) use residual approach from linear regression to assess resilience that proposed before, to assess different domains of resilience including physical, cognitive, and psychological resilience; 2) investigate association of resilience with adverse outcomes in general population, such as mortality, CVD, neurodegenerative and mental disease etc; 3) define the potential risk factors and biomarkers for resilience in general population. It is indisputable that assessing the measure of resilience, and identifying risk factors and biomarkers of resilience would have important implications for improving disability and decision-making in disease prevention, treatment, and care; thereby reducing the burden on individuals, families, and society. The project will conduct from 1- Apr 2023 to 31-Mar 2026 (3 years).

Scope extension:

Resilience, the ability to resist decline or recover function after adverse effects of a stressor, has attracted increasingly attentions and been recognized as a fundamental determinant of clinical outcomes. It was proposed as the ability to mobilize physiological reserves, and expected to decline in ageing process. Resilience included physical, cognitive, and psychological resilience. Low levels of resilience were risk factor for frailty, disability, hospitalization, and mortality. Hence, it is of great significance to assess resilience in general population contributing to decision-making in health care, such as therapeutic decision-making, acute care management, rehabilitation therapy, and assessment of adverse medication effect. In this study, our current scope was to: 1) evaluate the applicability of assessing different domains of resilience (physical, cognitive, and psychological resilience) using residuals methods from regression analyses. 2) validate its applicability by examining the association of resilience assessed by residuals with adverse outcomes (including mortality, CVD, neurodegenerative and mental disease. etc.) in general population. 3)investigate the potential risk factors and biomarkers for resilience in general population.

We want to extend the scope of our research to explore the association of social frailty and its items (social related factors, social connection, social supports, etc.) with adverse outcomes (including mortality, CVD, neurodegenerative and mental disease. etc.) in general population; we also want to demonstrate impact of the genetic susceptibility on these association. Additionally, we also wish to examine the mediation effect of several factors (lifestyles, immune function, biomarkers, etc.) between them; and attempt to explore the potential underlying mechanism