# Personality and Health: A Longitudinal Study

> **NIH NIH R01** · OREGON RESEARCH INSTITUTE · 2020 · $1,291,553

## Abstract

Project Summary
An increasing number of people are exposed to age graded cognitive declines that develop into mild cognitive
impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Individuals vary in the time of onset, and the rate of decline in cognitive
functioning associated with these risks. A portion of this variation can be captured by the influence of
personality on health over the lifespan. Our overarching aim for this competing renewal is to study associations
between personality and cognitive resilience using lifespan personality, health, and health behavior data over
the lifespan, in the Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort. This multiethnic cohort provides a rare opportunity to
investigate personality processes in relation to cognitive resilience. The study began over 50 years ago with
personality assessments of the participants when they were elementary school children. Since 1998, we have
located and recruited participants for questionnaire assessments of personality and many other psychosocial
variables, and conducted an extensive baseline medical and psychological examination at mean age 50. Using
these data, we have demonstrated associations between childhood personality and subjective and objective
health outcomes at midlife. A ten-year follow-up examination at age 60 is nearly complete for half of the
sample. In this next planned phase of the project, the primary activity will be to complete the follow-up medical
and psychological examination of our sample at mean age 60, approximately 10 years after the baseline
examination, on all eligible participants (N = 400). Childhood personality and personality change (from
childhood to adulthood, plus personality change in adulthood) will be used to predict risk of cognitive
impairment at mean age 60, and changes in cognitive functioning assessed annually over a span of four years.
We will additionally study change in physical health and cognitive functioning from mean age 50 to 60 using a
variety of health indicators and measures. Furthermore, we will examine the main mechanisms thought to
account for associations between personality and resilience to cognitive declines, and we shall do so uniquely
in the context of a longitudinal study spanning over 5-decades. These mechanisms are based on behavioral
(diet, exercise, tobacco and alcohol use, sun exposure) and biological (telomere length, mitochondrial
functioning, oxidative stress, biological age) processes which have been hypothesized to underlie associations
between personality and resilience to cognitive impairment. This project will generate evidence to guide
personality based interventions, in particular by suggesting which traits and trait mechanisms are most relevant
in childhood and at midlife (e.g., trait conscientiousness in elementary school, health-behavior mechanisms at
midlife). In addition, this project addresses the gross under-representation of Asian-Americans and those of
Native-Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander ancestry in health-re...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9904316
- **Project number:** 5R01AG020048-23
- **Recipient organization:** OREGON RESEARCH INSTITUTE
- **Principal Investigator:** Grant Edmonds
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,291,553
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1997-09-20 → 2022-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9904316

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9904316, Personality and Health: A Longitudinal Study (5R01AG020048-23). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9904316. Licensed CC0.

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