Social Inequality Linked to Faster Epigenetic Aging
Epigenetic clocks have revealed links between social determinants of health and accelerated aging.
Social factors, including socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity, strongly shape our health.
A new study has found that people who experience social inequality appear to be aging faster, as measured by epigenetic clocks.
Epigenetic aging clocks
As we age, our cells, organs, and tissues lose their resilience and integrity. This biological aging process does not proceed at the same rate in everyone.
Epigenetic clocks are algorithms based on DNA methylation patterns that act as biomarkers of healthy lifespan. They can be used to measure an individual’s “biological age”.
Three generations of epigenetic clocks exist. First generation clocks are trained to use methylation differences to predict chronological age. The second generation evaluate methylation patterns alongside other clinical health biomarkers to predict the onset of age-related diseases and mortality risk.Third generation clocks—the latest generation—also adopt the use of longitudinal data on different clinical biomarkers, which can be used to predict rates of aging.
Notably, previous studies have shown that epigenetic clocks are sensitive to socioeconomic and racial or ethnic disparities, indicating that they can capture the impact of social determinants of health. As a result, such clocks are increasingly being used by scientists to study how environmental exposures, lifestyle, and social conditions can affect health throughout a person’s life. There are many different specific iterations of epigenetic clocks, each of which provides different information.
Social determinants of health
Social factors influence access to health resources, exposure to environmental hazards, and chronic stress. People with lower socioeconomic status often have shorter lifespans and earlier onset of chronic diseases.
It has been theorized that social disadvantage accelerates biological aging processes; however, it remains unclear which epigenetic clocks best capture social determinants of health, the points in a person’s life when social exposures have the greatest effect on biological aging, and whether effects differ by sex.
In the new study, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development conducted a meta-analysis to synthesize findings of 140 studies on epigenetic aging and social factors that influence health. The dataset included over 65,000 participants from 23 different countries.
Social disadvantage is associated with a faster rate of biological aging
The study revealed that people who experience social inequality tend to exhibit faster biological aging, with the strongest correlations found when using the newest generations of epigenetic clocks.
The researchers found that biological age predicted by first-generation clocks was weakly associated with socioeconomic factors, while second- and third-generation clocks showed stronger associations.
The studies included in the meta-analysis comprised some with adult participants and others with children, although no study tracked epigenetic changes throughout the lifespan.
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However, this did enable the researchers to identify when socioeconomic associations with biological aging were apparent.
In children, living in a lower-socioeconomic-status family was associated with a faster pace of biological aging compared with their peers. Adults who had experienced social inequality in childhood also had an accelerated biological age compared to those who had grown up in a more affluent environment, indicating that the effects of lower socioeconomic status persist even decades after exposure.
Socioeconomic status in adulthood also affected biological aging—adults currently of a lower socioeconomic status tended to have a faster pace of aging than those of a higher socioeconomic status.
Race and ethnicity also affect biological aging
Epigenetic clock-measured biological aging showed a pronounced difference between people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
GrimAge, DunedinPoAm, and DunedinPACE—commonly-used second- and third-generation epigenetic clocks—indicated that Black individuals aged faster when compared to white individuals.
Latinx individuals were also found to age faster than white individuals, with the difference being most pronounced when measured with third-generation epigenetic clocks.
Implications for health
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Understanding the impact of the social environment on biological aging could help scientists evaluate the effectiveness of policy interventions. Successful interventions may be measured by whether they reduce the pace of biological aging in populations exposed to social inequality.
“There is now abundant correlational evidence linking a range of socially stratified exposures with epigenetic clock measures of biological aging,” the authors said in the paper.
In terms of study limitations, the authors do note that the analysis of race and ethnic variation using epigenetic clocks may be confounded by ancestry-linked genetic artifacts, as the vast majority of epigenetic clocks are modeled on white, European populations.
“An urgent priority is to develop and validate biological aging algorithms that are inclusive and globally representative,” they said.
Reference: Willems YE, Rezaki AD, Aikins M, et al. Social determinants of health and epigenetic clocks: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 140 studies. Nat Hum Behav. 2026. doi: 10.1038/s41562-026-02477-6
This article is a rework of a press release issued by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. Material has been edited for length and content.
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