Older adults frequently experience conditions affecting hearing/balance, oral health and vision, which can co-occur and contribute to functional decline and multimorbidity. UK Biobank enables large-scale study of these ageing-related conditions using linked health records and rich multi-modal data. This project will investigate ageing-related ENT, oral and ophthalmic conditions in older adults using UK Biobank genotype, baseline phenotypes, lifestyle, diet and environmental exposures, medications, laboratory biomarkers, imaging-derived phenotypes, and all available -omics. We will address: (1) the burden and distribution of ageing-related ENT, oral and ophthalmic conditions, including variation by demographic and socioeconomic factors; (2) how these conditions co-occur and change over time, including combined sensory impairment and multimorbidity trajectories; (3) which modifiable exposures-particularly diet, lifestyle and environmental factors are associated with incidence and progression of these conditions and trajectories; (4) which genetic, biomarker and multi-omics signatures are associated with these outcomes and improve biological interpretability and risk stratification; and (5) whether interpretable prediction models can be developed and validated for selected outcomes and trajectory endpoints, and the incremental value of adding -omics and imaging. Objectives are to define reproducible phenotype algorithms and code lists for ENT/oral/ophthalmic outcomes and derived trajectory endpoints; characterise co-occurrence patterns and longitudinal trajectories; estimate associations between modifiable exposures and disease onset/progression with appropriate adjustment and sensitivity analyses; integrate genetics, biomarkers, imaging and -omics to identify signatures and pathway-level summaries ; and develop and validate interpretable multi-modal risk prediction models with documented outputs suitable for dissemination.
