Eileen Crimmins
· University Professor AARP Chair in GerontologyVerifiedUniversity of Southern California · Geroscience
Active 1979–2026
About
Eileen Crimmins, PhD, is a University Professor and holder of the AARP Chair in Gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the co-director of the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health, one of the Demography of Aging Centers supported by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, and also co-directs the Multidisciplinary Training in Gerontology Program and the NIA-sponsored Network on Biological Risk. Her research focuses on changes over time in health and mortality, with significant contributions to the integration of biological indicators in large population surveys. She has served as co-chair of a National Academy of Sciences committee addressing the reasons behind the U.S. falling behind other countries in life expectancy. Crimmins has co-edited several books on international aging, mortality, and health expectancy, and has received notable awards such as the Kleemeier Award for Research from the Gerontological Society of America and the Irene B. Taeuber Award from the Population Association of America.
Research topics
- Medicine
- Sociology
- Computer Science
- Gerontology
- Psychology
- Biology
- Genetics
- Data Mining
- Demography
- Political Science
- Virology
- Physical therapy
- Internal medicine
- Medical education
- Computational biology
- Geography
- Advertising
- Psychiatry
- Media studies
- Bioinformatics
- Nursing
- Business
- Environmental health
Selected publications
HbA1c alone might not reliably indicate India's diabetes prevalence – Authors' reply
The Lancet Global Health · 2026-01-07
articleOpen accessLovely Gupta and colleagues question the use of HbA1c in the Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI). We wish to make three points. First, we did not “concede … that HbA1c-only diagnosis is flawed”, and we disagree with the letter's suggestion that we did not meaningfully discuss HbA1c-related measurement issues. In our Discussion, we devoted a paragraph of 350 words, including 14 references, to the strengths and limitations of our use of HbA1c. We refer readers to this text. Additionally, allow us to clarify that HbA1c is largely unaffected by common haemoglobinopathies when measured by modern laboratory methods, such as the assay used in LASI.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-02-14
articleOpen accessAbstract Context The environmental or other genetic factors might influence the effect of Klotho ( KL) on glucose metabolism. Objective We investigated mitochondrial genetic variants that interact with KL single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to modulate diabetes risk. Methods We used the data from 7,047 non-Hispanic white participants of the Health and Retirement Study, a prospective observational study including adults aged 50 years and older from the United States. First, we performed single gene-wide association scans to identify KL SNPs associated with diabetes. Next, we performed a nuclear-by-mitochondrial interaction test (NuMIT) in which we use an identified KL SNP from the gene-wide scan to evaluate potential interactions with 85 mitochondrial SNPs in relation to diabetes. Results We failed to identify a significant association between diabetes and the KL SNP in our single gene-wide association test. However, we identified a novel variant ( KL rs9563121) which showed a trend of increasing klotho mRNA levels with each additional minor allele. A NuMIT analysis identified mitochondrial SNPs, which showed significant interactions with rs9563121 in relation to diabetes risk. MitoG15929A showed significant interactions with rs9563121 in both men and women. MitoG15929A diminished the potential beneficial effect of KL rs9563121 on diabetes risk in women. Among men with the MitoG15929A variant, KL rs9563121 was associated with higher prevalence of diabetes. Conclusion The NuMIT approach revealed significant interactions between mitochondrial and nuclear DNA variants of KL . Furthermore, MitoG15929A may have a role in the interaction between diabetes and KL in a sex-dependent manner.
Neurology · 2026-04-08
articleBACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Plant-based diets have been linked to slower cognitive decline, but data on long-term dietary changes and from diverse populations are limited. The primary aim of this study was to examine plant-based dietary patterns and their change over time in relation to Alzheimer disease and related dementias (ADRDs). METHODS: This prospective longitudinal analysis of the Multiethnic Cohort Study, based in Hawaii and California (primarily Los Angeles County), included data on African American, Japanese American, Latino, Native Hawaiian, and White participants who completed food frequency questionnaires at baseline (1993-1996; age 45-75 years) and at 10-year follow-up (2003-2008) and whose Medicare claims were linked to identify incident ADRDs. A priori indices for the overall plant-based diet index (PDI), the healthful plant-based diet index (hPDI), and the unhealthful plant-based diet index (uPDI) were analyzed in Cox regression models for ADRD. RESULTS: ℇ4 carrier status. DISCUSSION: These findings suggest that adopting plant-based diets, specifically refraining from low-quality plant-based diets, even at an older age, is associated with a lower risk of ADRDs.
GeroScience · 2025-09-01 · 3 citations
articleOpen accessThe complexity of epigenetic changes that accompany aging has been distilled into a number of molecular timepieces-termed epigenetic clocks-that characterize the pace of biological aging to differing degrees. Here, we develop and validate a DNA methylation-based Physiological health Age (PhysAge) score, comprised of eight DNA methylation surrogates to represent multi-system physiology and developed from commonly measured clinical biomarkers: CRP, peak flow, pulse pressure, HDL-cholesterol, Hba1c, waist-to-height ratio (WHR), cystatin C, and dehydroepianrosterone sulphate (DHEAS). We use data from the population-representative US Health and Retirement Study (HRS), split into a training (n = 1589) and test sample (n = 1588) and corroborate findings in two independent cohorts: The Irish Longitudinal Study of Aging (TILDA; n = 488) and the Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Ageing (NICOLA; n = 1830). PhysAge and the predominant second-generation epigenetic clocks, PhenoAge, GrimAge2, and DunedinPACE, were tested for their prediction of mortality and multiple age-related clinical measures (i.e., grip strength, gait speed, cognitive function, disability, frailty). PhysAge was comparable to extant clocks in predicting health measures and was indistinguishable from GrimAge2 in predicting mortality, despite not being trained on mortality. Moreover, the eight individual surrogates comprising PhysAge predicted health outcomes better than the measured values in many instances. The established clinical relevance of the biomarkers from which surrogates were derived opens up new opportunities for cross-study and cross-country comparisons of population health. Findings suggest that the DNA methylation PhysAge can be leveraged as a single biomarker to represent multiple physiological systems and offers utility in the context of clinical monitoring.
Nature Communications · 2025-10-10 · 3 citations
articleOpen accessSenior authorCellular senescence, a hallmark of aging, can be quantified by the gene expression composite scores for the canonical senescence pathway (CSP), senescence initiating pathway (SIP), senescence response pathway (SRP), a summary of the three, and the SenMayo gene list; however, these have not been probed in representative populations. Using RNA sequencing data from the U.S. representative Health and Retirement Study (HRS) sample (N = 3580), we examine how these composite scores relate to sociobehavioral factors and aging-related outcomes. Senescence scores generally increase with age except for CSP. Higher scores are observed in women and individuals with class II obesity. All scores, except for CSP, are associated with accelerated epigenetic aging, physiological dysregulation, multimorbidity, cognitive decline, and 6-year mortality (all p < 0.05). These associations largely persist after adjustment for DunedinPACE. Our findings suggest that cellular senescence gene expression composite scores capture meaningful variation in aging-related health and complement existing epigenetic aging biomarkers.
Exposure to Ambient Heat and Kidney Function in the Health and Retirement Study
Innovation in Aging · 2025-12-01
articleOpen accessAbstract Increased heat events are one of the defining characteristics of climate change affecting human health. The kidney’s role in homeostasis makes them particularly susceptible to heat, especially in older populations in which kidney function is declining. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) Venous Blood Study (N = 9,933), we linked respondents to census tract level daily heat index from 7 days prior to blood collection. Kidney function was assessed with estimated glomerular filtration rate based on serum creatinine (eGFRcr). The average age of our analytic sample was 69 years (SD = 10). About 18% of the sample would be classified as having chronic kidney disease based on an eGFRcr &lt; = 60 mL/min/1.83m2. Using linear models with cluster-adjusted standard errors, and controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and urbanicity, we found that each unit increase in prior 7-day average heat-index was associated with a decreased eGFRcr of 0.04 (95% CI: -0.06, -0.02). We also categorized heat index days into cautionary (heat index &gt; 80, the level at which the National Weather Service reports fatigue is possible) and extreme cautionary levels (heat index&gt;90, the level at which NWS reports sunstroke, muscle cramps, and/or heat exhaustion is possible). We found that more days at cautionary level was associated with -0.96 lower (95% CI: -2.0, 0.05) eGFRcr and more days at extreme cautionary levels was associated with -2.5 lower (95% CI: -3.7, -1.3) eGFRcr. Our findings suggest kidney function in older adults can be adversely affected by exposure to short-term high heat.
Living in historically redlined neighborhoods and biological aging among older adults
The Journals of Gerontology Series A · 2025-09-02
articleOpen accessLiving in historically redlined neighborhoods has deleterious effects on aging-related health outcomes, yet little is known about how historical redlining affects the physiological aging process and the role of current neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) on this relationship. This study determined if living in historically redlined neighborhoods was associated with biological age and if this association was mediated by neighborhood-level socioeconomic status. We linked the Health and Retirement Study 2016 Venous Blood Study (HRS-VBS) to redlining scores from the Historic Redlining Indicator data and census tract-level data from the 2014-2018 American Community Survey 5-year estimates (N = 6466 respondents). Multivariable linear regression models were used to assess differences in biological age among older residents of historically redlined neighborhoods graded "Best/Desirable," "Declining," and "Hazardous." Mediation analyses using the khb method were used to assess whether measures of neighborhood affluence and disadvantage explained differences in biological age by historical redlining grade. Older residents of "Declining" or "Hazardous" neighborhoods were about 2.5 and 1.7 years older biologically than residents of "Best/Desirable" neighborhoods. Neighborhood SES mediated this relationship, with affluence explaining approximately 20% and disadvantage explaining about 8% ("Declining") and 25% ("Hazardous") of the association between historical redlining and biological age. Our study highlights the importance of evaluating measures of physiological functioning and current neighborhood conditions to clarify existing health disparities among residents of historically redlined neighborhoods.
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025-12-15 · 1 citations
articleOpen accessBACKGROUND: Rapid increase in cardiometabolic diseases in India may contribute to increased incidence of late-life cognitive impairment. This study focuses on associations between baseline cardiometabolic risk factors and subsequent decline in cognitive function among older adults in India, leveraging data from two waves (Wave 1: 2017-2020, Wave 2: 2022-2024) of the Longitudinal Aging Study in India-Diagnostic Assessment of Dementia (LASI-DAD). METHODS: Analysis included longitudinal data of 1554 study participants. A summary measure of different cognitive functional domains was used. Cognitive decline was defined as annual decline in cognitive score ≥ 0.05 times the standard deviation of the summary score. Cardiometabolic risk was characterized using cardiovascular, metabolic, and inflammatory biomarkers. Multivariate, multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to examine the associations between cardiometabolic risk and cognitive decline. RESULTS: At baseline, 71.7% of the sample had elevated homocysteine levels, 44.4% had elevated blood pressure, 23% had elevated glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and 6.7% had elevated uric acid levels. Between the two waves, 34.8% experienced significant cognitive decline, while 35.6% died. Multivariate multinomial logistic regression showed significant cognitive decline was associated with elevated blood pressure [odds ratio (OR): 1.7, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3-2.2], elevated HbA1c (OR: 1.1, 95% CI: 1.0-1.2), being overweight (OR: 1.4, 95% CI: 1.0-2.0), and elevated uric acid level (OR: 1.2, 95% CI: 1.0-1.3). Those with hypertension had 1.5 times higher odds of mortality (95% confidence interval: 1.2-2.0), while those with diabetes mellitus or elevated pro-brain natriuretic peptide had 1.2 times (95% CI: 1.1-1.4), and 1.8 times (95% CI: 1.1-1.4) higher odds of mortality. CONCLUSION: Cardiometabolic risk factors play a significant role in late-life cognitive decline and death among older Indians. These longitudinal relationships from LASI-DAD highlight potentially modifiable risk factors and inform potential prevention policies.
The Journals of Gerontology Series A · 2025-09-23
articleOpen accessSenior authorChronic low-grade systemic inflammation is a risk factor for chronic diseases and mortality and is an important biomarker in health research. DNA methylation (DNAm) surrogate biomarkers are valuable exposure, risk factor, and health outcome predictors in studies where the measures cannot be measured directly and often perform as well or better than direct measures. We generated a DNAm surrogate biomarker for chronic, systemic inflammation from a systemic inflammation latent variable of 7 inflammatory markers and evaluated its performance relative to measured inflammatory biomarkers in predicting several age-associated outcomes of interest, including mortality, activities of daily living, and multimorbidity in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The DNAm surrogate, Inflammation Latent Variable Methylation Surrogate (InfLaMeS), correlated with 7 individual inflammation markers (r = -0.2-0.6) and had similar or stronger associations with multimorbidity, disability, and 4-year mortality in HRS compared to the systemic inflammation latent variable measure when predicting multimorbidity, disability, and 4-year mortality in HRS. Findings were validated in an external cohort, the Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing. These results suggest that InfLaMeS provides a robust alternative to measured blood-chemistry measures of inflammation with broad research applicability in instances where values of inflammatory markers are not measured but DNAm data are available.
Journal of Alzheimer s Disease · 2025-11-18
articleOpen accessBackgroundPlasma neurodegenerative biomarkers are a potential low-cost tool for studying Alzheimer's disease and dementia in population-based research, especially in low- and middle-income countries. However, their associations with modifiable risk factors and utility as an outcome in epidemiologic studies remain unclear.ObjectiveOur objective was to estimate the cross-sectional association between modifiable lifecourse risk factors for dementia and plasma-based neurodegenerative biomarkers, and to compare those with the associations between lifecourse risk factors and cognition in a population-representative Indian sample.MethodsUsing nationally representative data from the Longitudinal Aging Study in India-Diagnostic Assessment of Dementia (N = 1625, average age 68.2 years), we estimated linear regressions to compare cross-sectional associations between lifecourse risk factors and both neurodegenerative biomarkers (amyloid-β 42/40, total-tau, phosphorylated Tau181, glial fibrillary acidic protein, neurofilament light chain) and cognitive outcomes (general cognition, memory).ResultsDespite significant associations between seven of thirteen risk factors and cognitive outcomes, associations between risk factors and neurodegenerative biomarkers were largely null with some exceptions; for example, hypertension (β = 0.17SD; 95% CI:0.08,0.26) and diabetes (β = 0.21SD; 95% CI:0.09, 0.32) were associated with higher neurofilament light chain.ConclusionsWhile we found expected associations between lifecourse risk factors for dementia and cognition, there was not strong evidence of cross-sectional associations between risk factors for dementia and plasma-based biomarkers.
Recent grants
NIH · $744k · 1993
NIH · $8.8M · 2020–2026
Network on Life Course Health Dynamics and Disparities in 21st Century America Renewal
NIH · $4.8M · 2014–2029
Biomarker Cross-Calibration to Investigate International Health Inequalities
NIH · $2.6M · 2015–2022
NIH · $15.2M · 2012–2028
Frequent coauthors
- 103 shared
Jung Ki Kim
University of Southern California
- 80 shared
Jennifer Ailshire
University of Southern California
- 69 shared
Teresa E. Seeman
University of California, Los Angeles
- 62 shared
Jessica D. Faul
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- 60 shared
Eric T. Klopack
University of Southern California
- 53 shared
Loı̈c Le Marchand
Cancer Center of Hawaii
- 53 shared
Unhee Lim
University of Southern California
- 53 shared
Song‐Yi Park
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Awards & honors
- Kleemeier Award for Research from the Gerontological Society…
- Irene B. Taeuber Award from the Population Association of Am…
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