Some social surveys now collect physical measurements and markers derived from biological samples, in addition to self-reported health assessments. This information is expensive to collect; its value in medical epidemiology has been clearly established, but its potential contribution to social science research is less certain. We focused on disability, which results from biological processes but is defined in terms of its implications for social functioning and wellbeing. Using data from waves 2 and 3 of the UK Understanding Society panel survey as our baseline, we estimated predictive models for disability 2-4 years ahead, using a wide range of biomarkers in addition to self-assessed health (SAH) and other socio-economic covariates. We found a quantitatively and statistically significant predictive role for a large set of nurse-collected and blood-based biomarkers, over and above the strong predictive power of self-assessed health. We also applied a latent variable model accounting for the longitudinal nature of observed disability outcomes and measurement error in in SAH and biomarkers. Although SAH performed well as a summary measure, it has shortcomings as a leading indicator of disability, since we found it to be biased in the sense of over- or under-sensitivity to certain biological pathways.

中文翻译：

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生物标志物是残疾的先兆。

现在，除了自我报告的健康评估之外，一些社会调查还收集来自生物样本的物理测量值和标记。这些信息收集起来很昂贵；它在医学流行病学中的价值已得到明确确立，但其对社会科学研究的潜在贡献尚不确定。我们关注的是残疾，它是由生物过程引起的，但根据其对社会功能和福祉的影响来定义。以英国了解协会小组调查的第二和第三次调查的数据为基准，我们估算了未来2-4年的残疾预测模型，除了自我评估的健康（SAH）和其他社会行为指标外，还使用了广泛的生物标志物经济协变量。除了自我评估健康的强大预测能力以外，我们还发现了大量护士收集的基于血液的生物标记物在数量和统计学上的重要预测作用。我们还应用了潜在变量模型，该模型考虑了SAH和生物标志物中观察到的残疾结果和测量误差的纵向性质。尽管SAH总体表现良好，但它还是残疾的主要指标，因为我们发现它在对某些生物途径的过度敏感性或敏感性不足方面存在偏见。