ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how biogerontologists measure biological aging in the individual and in populations. It introduces precision medicine, a new medical model where medical decisions, practices, or products are tailored to the individual. The chapter describes how biogerontologists measure the rate of biological aging, both in individuals and in populations. It discusses measuring aging in a population. Measuring the number of deaths in a human population in most countries poses few problems, because law requires formal recordings of deaths. Using the Benjamin Gompertz analysis for measuring the rate of aging in populations of a single species has proved very useful to biogerontologists. Biology students learned that measuring mortality offers insight into the rate of aging in a population. Measuring morbidity in a population gave the demographer a well-defined, independent, and stable marker for the rate of aging in the average person.
