Marklein Kathryn E, Crews Douglas E
Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America.
College of Public Health, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 May 3;12(5):e0176025. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176025. eCollection 2017.
To broaden bioarchaeological applicability of skeletal frailty indices (SFIs) and increase sample size, we propose indices with fewer biomarkers (2-11 non-metric biomarkers) and compare these reduced biomarker SFIs to the original metric/non-metric 13-biomarker SFI. From the 2-11-biomarker SFIs, we choose the index with the fewest biomarkers (6-biomarker SFI), which still maintains the statistical robusticity of a 13-biomarker SFI, and apply this index to the same Medieval monastic and nonmonastic populations, albeit with an increased sample size. For this increased monastic and nonmonastic sample, we also propose and implement a 4-biomarker SFI, comprised of biomarkers from each of four stressor categories, and compare these SFI distributions with those of the non-metric biomarker SFIs. From the Museum of London WORD database, we tabulate multiple SFIs (2- to 13-biomarkers) for Medieval monastic and nonmonastic samples (N = 134). We evaluate associations between these ten non-metric SFIs and the 13-biomarker SFI using Spearman's correlation coefficients. Subsequently, we test non-metric 6-biomarker and 4-biomarker SFI distributions for associations with cemetery, age, and sex using Analysis of Variance/Covariance (ANOVA/ANCOVA) on larger samples from the monastic and nonmonastic cemeteries (N = 517). For Medieval samples, Spearman's correlation coefficients show a significant association between the 13-biomarker SFI and all non-metric SFIs. Utilizing a 6-biomarker and parsimonious 4-biomarker SFI, we increase the nonmonastic and monastic samples and demonstrate significant lifestyle and sex differences in frailty that were not observed in the original, smaller sample. Results from the 6-biomarker and parsimonious 4-biomarker SFIs generally indicate similarities in means, explained variation (R2), and associated P-values (ANOVA/ANCOVA) within and between nonmonastic and monastic samples. We show that non-metric reduced biomarker SFIs provide alternative indices for application to other bioarchaeological collections. These findings suggest that a SFI, comprised of six or more non-metric biomarkers available for the specific sample, may have greater applicability than, but comparable statistical characteristics to, the originally proposed 13-biomarker SFI.
为了拓宽骨骼脆弱指数（SFIs）在生物考古学中的适用性并增加样本量，我们提出了生物标志物数量更少的指数（2 - 11个非计量生物标志物），并将这些减少生物标志物的SFIs与原始的包含13个生物标志物的计量/非计量SFI进行比较。从2 - 11个生物标志物的SFIs中，我们选择生物标志物数量最少的指数（6个生物标志物的SFI），其仍保持13个生物标志物SFI的统计稳健性，并将该指数应用于相同的中世纪修道院和非修道院人群，尽管样本量有所增加。对于增加后的修道院和非修道院样本，我们还提出并实施了一个由来自四个应激源类别的生物标志物组成的4个生物标志物的SFI，并将这些SFI分布与非计量生物标志物的SFIs进行比较。从伦敦博物馆WORD数据库中，我们列出了中世纪修道院和非修道院样本（N = 134）的多个SFIs（2至13个生物标志物）。我们使用斯皮尔曼相关系数评估这十个非计量SFIs与13个生物标志物的SFI之间的关联。随后，我们使用方差分析/协方差分析（ANOVA/ANCOVA）对来自修道院和非修道院墓地的更大样本（N = 517）测试非计量6个生物标志物和4个生物标志物的SFI分布与墓地、年龄和性别的关联。对于中世纪样本，斯皮尔曼相关系数显示13个生物标志物的SFI与所有非计量SFIs之间存在显著关联。利用6个生物标志物和简约的4个生物标志物的SFI，我们增加了非修道院和修道院样本，并证明了在原始较小样本中未观察到的脆弱性方面显著的生活方式和性别差异。6个生物标志物和简约的4个生物标志物的SFIs的结果总体上表明，非修道院和修道院样本内部以及之间在均值、解释变异（R2）和相关P值（ANOVA/ANCOVA）方面存在相似性。我们表明，非计量减少生物标志物的SFIs为应用于其他生物考古学样本集提供了替代指数。这些发现表明，由特定样本中可用的六个或更多非计量生物标志物组成的SFI可能比最初提出的13个生物标志物的SFI具有更大的适用性，但统计特征相当。
