Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey
A foundational cohort for studying reproduction, development, epigenetics, and aging
Background
The Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS) has been foundational to my research program. It is where I did my PhD work, developed much of my approach to population epigenomics, and learned to connect evolutionary theory, epidemiology, and molecular data in a long-running human cohort.
The CLHNS is a large, longitudinal, multigenerational study based in metropolitan Cebu City. It includes repeated measurements of growth, development, reproduction, health, social environments, and biological function across decades. The study has also generated endocrine, immunological, genetic, and epigenetic data, making it a powerful resource for studying life course processes in a non-WEIRD population.
Reproduction and Aging
My work in Cebu has focused heavily on the relationship between reproduction and biological aging. Using epigenetic age and telomere length as measures of cellular aging, we showed that women’s cells appeared to age with each additional pregnancy, consistent with the idea that reproduction can carry measurable biological costs.
At the same time, pregnancy is not simply a cost. Our work also points to the complex biology of reproduction, including immune, endocrine, and molecular changes that may have both short-term and long-term implications for women’s health. This work helped motivate my broader interest in pregnancy as a physiological stressor and in biological aging as a tool for studying life course health.
Life Course Epigenomics
The Cebu cohort has also supported work on early life environments, socioeconomic conditions, inflammation, DNA methylation, and adult health. These projects helped establish my interest in how social and ecological exposures become biologically embedded, and how those signatures may persist, change, or interact with genetic background across the life course.
CLHNS remains central to my academic identity, but my current research extends the same conceptual and analytic toolkit into additional cohorts, clinical datasets, intervention studies, and geroscience-focused questions.