BU-SHARP News and Research Blog
Parental Longevity and the Science Behind Healthy Aging
post by BU-SHARP Writing Fellow Lindsay Griesman
As life expectancies increase and people live longer, researchers are increasingly interested in not just how we live, but how long we can do so in good health. People who live to 100 years or older are known as centenarians, and they offer researchers a unique opportunity to better understand the factors that may contribute to healthy aging and extreme longevity. Despite life expectancies rebounding to higher years, centenarians remain remarkably rare, making up just 0.03% of the US population in 2024.
One strategy researchers can use to learn more about healthy aging is to study the children of centenarians. If having a parent who lives to be 100 is associated with living longer or developing age-related diseases later, researchers can investigate which biological and environmental factors might contribute to this pattern, and relate their findings to actionable change to reduce the incidence of disease or delay the onset of age-related diseases.
A recent study published in JAMA Network Open examined this question, using three longitudinal studies: the LonGenity Study, the New England Centenarian Study (NECS), and the UK Biobank. Researchers compared people who had at least one parent who lived to age 100 with control participants whose parents had shorter lifespans. Across the three studies, researchers examined mortality and four age-related health conditions: cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, hypertension, and stroke.
The researchers found that offspring of centenarians had lower risk of death, CVD, and hypertension compared with controls. Their risk of death was 42% lower, while their risks of CVD and hypertension were 33% and 32% lower, respectively. The age at death was delayed by about three years, while the onset of hypertension was delayed by approximately five years. No significant association was found between parental longevity and cancer.
BU Researchers Studying Exceptional Longevity
The New England Centenarian Study (NECS), one of the data sets featured in this study, has tracked centenarians and their families since 1995 and has been based at Boston University since 2002. Stacy L. Andersen, PhD, and Thomas T. Perls, MD, MPH, of Boston University’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine are co-directors.
The NECS is one of the largest studies of centenarians and their families, having recruited and assessed over 4,000 individuals to date. Through this research, Andersen, Perls, and their collaborators investigate why some people are able to live exceptionally long lives while delaying or avoiding many of the diseases commonly associated with aging.
So far, the team has determined that exceptional longevity runs in families and that there is a genetic influence upon survival which increases with ages of survival beyond ages 90-99. This genetic influence likely consists of a plethora of genetic variations with insignificant individual effects but as a group, have a strong effect.
Help BU Recruit Centenarians for the Study
If you know a centenarian, Please contact the NECS toll-free at 1-888-333-6327 or by email at agewell@bu.edu. You can also reach the Principal Investigator, Tom Perls MD, MPH at thperls@bu.edu.
Meet Lindsay Griesman, BU-SHARP’s Social Science Writing Fellow
BU-SHARP welcomes Lindsay Griesman to the team! Lindsay joins us as our first Social Science Writing Fellow. She'll be working with us on blog posts, social media, and assorted content creation.
Staff Spotlight:
Lindsay Griesman is a senior at Boston University majoring in Anthropology, Health & Medicine (CAS’27), and minoring in Biology (CAS) and Public Health (SAR). Born and raised in Manhattan, New York, she has grown up surrounded by urban environments and public health efforts, motivating her to pursue a Master of Public Health after graduation and to continue pursuing the intersections of research, advocacy, and patient care fields.
In Summer 2026, Lindsay interned at Boston University's Center for Innovation in Social Science (CISS) and conducted research on the use of GLP-1s, how social dynamics shape their use and access, and the growing influence of self-optimization and enhancement in today’s society. Her paper, “For Health or Enhancement: GLP-1 Use in the Era of Molecular Biopolitics,” pushed her to think more critically about the ways we define health, wellness, and the body.
At BU-SHARP, Lindsay is particularly interested in understanding how socioeconomic factors shape the aging process, health outcomes, and access to care. Her interest in aging research is also personal, as her connection to Alzheimer’s disease has motivated her to better understand the social and structural factors that influence cognitive health and quality of life as people age.
Stay tuned for her first piece coming out this Friday, which examines the recently published JAMA article, "Exceptional Parental Longevity and Onset of Morbidity and Mortality Across Cohorts".
BU-SHARP Network, Community, and Priorities
August notes from MPI Maria Glymour
It’s back to school season here at BU-SHARP and the MPI team is excited to welcome the community. We have several upcoming events planned—an (online) 'meet and greet' open house (9/10, 3-4 pm); research accelerator meetings offering help on conference preparation, skills-building, and problem solving (9/14, 1045-1145 am); a data analysis “hackathon” focused on data from the Health and Aging in Africa: Longitudinal Studies in South Africa (HAALSA) cohort; and many other activities we hope the BU-SHARP community will find useful.
Overall, our goal is to foster interdisciplinary research on social, economic, and demographic factors and Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD). I realize that to newcomers this is a bizarrely clunky acronym, but please know that every letter is precious.
BU-SHARP is part of a nationwide network of NIA-sponsored centers, coordinated by a terrific team at the University of Minnesota. We are a new center, just launched in the summer of 2026.
Our specific points of focus include understanding why some groups of people persistently have a higher risk of AD/ADRD than others, and what we could do about that. We are also interested in fostering high quality of life for people affected by AD/ADRD and their loved ones. With growing emphasis on early diagnosis, many people will live for decades after being diagnosed with some condition on the AD/ADRD continuum. We believe it is critical to ensure those individuals continue to thrive and engage in our society, but evidence will be needed to understand what strategies work to achieve that. Our center aims to elevate concerns in particular of people with disabilities and rural communities, incorporating consideration of life course factors and modifiable factors.
As we launch BU-SHARP, we are trying to find the ways to be the most supportive and generative for the research and practice communities. Please don’t hesitate to drop us a line and let us know what you’d like to see here in the blog and in BU-SHARP sponsored activities—for yourself or for your students and mentees.
Announcing BU-SHARP, a P30 Center on the Demography and Economics of Aging
Maria Glymour, Andrew Stokes, and Deborah Carr will lead the Boston University-Quantitative Population Science and Healthy Cognitive Aging Research Program (BU-SHARP) to foster national research collaboration on preventing and ameliorating the consequences of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in disproportionately affected populations.
In the United States, sociodemographic groups have distinct experiences with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) onset, progression, and consequences. These experiences are shaped by potentially modifiable social and contextual risk factors across the life course. Research on ADRD involving these populations and studying risk factors, however, is often impeded by methodological challenges, insufficient data, and research teams that lack the appropriate, interdisciplinary expertise to study specific populations and contexts.
To fill this gap, Maria Glymour, chair and professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health, Andrew Stokes, associate professor of global health, and Deborah Carr, A&S distinguished professor of sociology, have received a $2.7 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to establish a Center on the Demography and Economics (D&E) of Aging at Boston University, the eighteenth such D&E Center nationally.
This six-year award will support the establishment of the Boston University-Quantitative Population Science and Healthy Cognitive Aging Research Program (BU-SHARP) center. The BU-SHARP center will work to foster interdisciplinary connections between research initiatives across and beyond Boston University focused on demography, sociology, economics, and epidemiology and which hold relevance to ADRD and cognitive aging research, provide pilot funding and technical assistance, and enhance access to underutilized datasets and methodological resources. The center will support research examining between and within group patterning of AD/ADRD onset, progression, and consequences in disproportionately affected populations, investigating social resources and mechanisms affecting risk, and identifying modifiable contextual, policy, and other structural influences that may serve as strategies to reduce the incidence and burden of AD/ADRD across the country.
Some of the planned activities for the center include a meeting series that will provide an opportunity for researchers across the country to workshop and receive constructive feedback on ADRD research projects, office hours providing data and analytic support to ADRD researchers, a research translation program that includes partnerships with the Public Health Post and Social Science Summer Writing Internship Program, a pilot funding and mentorship program for innovative, small-scale research projects led by early-stage investigators, and the development of numerous data and methodological resources to benefit the ADRD research community.
The premise of BU-SHARP is that advancements in ADRD research can be accelerated by bringing the right people to the table, giving those people the best available tools to address problems, creating a dynamic community that kindles new ideas and approaches, and highlighting research progress for other researchers, the public, and decision-makers to leverage. It is rare for a single research team to have expertise in advanced quantitative methods, experience with ADRD research and datasets, relevant contextual and community-based experience, and training on how to disseminate and translate research. BU-SHARP seeks to bring together stakeholders across disciplines, including those who have not previously studied ADRD, to forge interdisciplinary collaborations that will advance the state of the science and its public health impacts.
SPH researcher Jennifer Weuve, professor of epidemiology, is a co-investigator on this project, along with Tal Gross, professor in the Questrom School of Business and Christopher Robertson in the School of Law. Programming and other opportunities organized by BU-SHARP open to the SPH and BU communities will be shared on the center’s website, where a sign-up is available to receive email updates about the center’s upcoming activities.