The pace of aging: Intrinsic time scales in demography

<b>Background</b>: The pace of aging is a concept that captures the time-related aspect of aging. It formalizesthe idea of a characteristic life span or intrinsic population time scale. In the rapidly developing field of comparative biodemography, measures that account for inter-speciesdifferences in life span are needed to compare how species age. <b>Objective</b>: We aim to provide a mathematical foundation for the concept of pace. We derive desiredmathematical properties of pace measures and suggest candidates which satisfy these properties. Subsequently, we introduce the concept of pace-standardization, which reveals differences in demographic quantities that are not due to pace. Examples and consequences are discussed. <b>Conclusions</b>: Mean life span (i.e., life expectancy from birth or from maturity) is intuitively appealing,theoretically justified, and the most appropriate measure of pace. Pace-standardizationprovides a serviceable method for comparative aging studies to explore differences indemographic patterns of aging across species, and it may considerably alter conclusionsabout the strength of aging.

Abstract licence: CC BY

A person counts once a day per paper. We keep no cookie and no address: a reader is a hash that changes every day. Any month under five reads shows no number.