Project description
How long do we live and why?
The mortality rate of a given population usually reflects the socioeconomic and environmental conditions people live in. However, life expectancy seems to be affected by other biological factors such as obesity or life choices such as alcohol and drug use. The EU-funded MORTAL project aims to integrate knowledge from different disciplines to understand what drives population mortality in the 21st century. Researchers will employ new measures of biological risk and determine how they affect health and ageing. Additional parameters such as education and migration will also be taken into account. Results will offer new knowledge on the mechanisms that influence mortality in a given population.
Objective
The aim of MORTAL is to challenge current non-empirical narratives and produce fundamentally new knowledge of mechanisms underlying mortality trends. The health and longevity of a population is a key barometer of overall welfare, reflecting the cumulative effects of the broader social, economic, and environmental conditions in which people live. Recently, demographic alarm bells have sounded as life expectancy has fallen in the U.S. and mortality improvements in the UK and other parts of Europe have stalled. Whether these trends are due to short term causes such as “deaths of despair” due to drugs, alcohol and suicide or longer-term changes in risk factors such as obesity is not yet known, and some work in this area has lacked empirical rigour. For the first time, MORTAL will combine theory and data across multiple disciplines (biology, epidemiology, sociology, economics, genetics) with demographic theory on the challenging three-dimensional age-period-cohort space in which mortality trends emerge to understand the underlying drivers of population mortality. I propose to (1) integrate macro and micro level data sources to document changes in social and biological risk factors across cohorts, time and place (2) utilize innovative measures of biological risk (epigenetics, microbiome) to understand how life experiences and exposures across cohorts influence trajectories of health and ageing (3) test important selection dynamics across cohorts and their implications for mortality trends including selection into education and selective migration (4) develop a new interdisciplinary conceptual model and simulations of how cohort changes in social and biological risk may influence observed mortality trends going forward. Building a model from cells to society and across age, period, and cohort, MORTAL will integrate knowledge across disparate disciplines to answer the vital question: as populations, how long do we live, and why?
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences sociology demography mortality
- medical and health sciences health sciences public health epidemiology
- natural sciences chemical sciences organic chemistry alcohols
- medical and health sciences health sciences nutrition obesity
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics epigenetics
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2020-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.