Invited Commentary: Epigenetic Clocks and Obesity —Towards the Next Frontier Using Integrative Approaches and Early-Life Models
AbstractWhy people of the same age show differences in age-related functional decline and whether biological aging can be slowed down through lifestyle changes and therapeutics are active research topics. Molecular tools that predict biological age based on DNA methylation markers, known as epigenetic clocks, are facilitating these efforts. In this issue, Kresovich et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2021;190(6):984 –993) investigated a cohort of non-Hispanic White women, demonstrating positive relationships between adiposity measures and the ticking rate of epigenetic clocks in blood. This commentary emphasizes that integrating mol...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - November 18, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Depression, Anxiety, and Self-Directed Violence in Women With Endometriosis: A Retrospective Matched-Cohort Study
AbstractThe purpose of this study was to compare the incidence of mental health outcomes in women in the United States with and without documented endometriosis. In a retrospective matched-cohort study using administrative health claims data from Optum ’s Clinformatics DataMart from May 1, 2000, through March 31, 2019, women aged 18–50 years with endometriosis (n = 72,677), identified byInternational Classification of Disease diagnosis codes (revisions 9 or 10), were matched 1:2 on age and calendar time to women without endometriosis (n = 147,251), with a median follow-up of 529 days (interquartile range, 195, 1,16...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - November 13, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Impact of Male-Origin Microchimerism on Cardiovascular Disease in Women: A Prospective Cohort Study
In this study, we investigated whether MOM was associated with risk of IHD and ischemic stroke in women. We evaluated the association between MOM and ischemic events in a cohort of 766 Danish women enrolled in the Diet, Cancer and Health cohor t during 1993–1997 when aged 50–64 years. Of these women, 545 (71.2%) tested positive for MOM through targeting of the Y chromosome (DYS14 DNA sequence) in their blood. Multiple Cox regression models were used to calculate hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals. We found that MOM was associated with a significantly reduced rate of IHD (hazard ratio = 0.44, 95% confidence ...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - November 13, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Gestational and Postpartum Weight Trajectories Among Women With and Without Asthma
AbstractAsthma leads to increased weight gain in nonpregnant populations, but studies have not examined this association within the context of pregnancy. The association between asthma and perinatal weight trajectories was examined in the Breathe —Wellbeing, Environment, Lifestyle, and Lung Function Study (2015–2019). Multilevel linear spline models were adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, income, marital status, education, cigarette smoking, parity, study site, and prepregnancy body mass index were used to examine differences in perinatal weight trajectories between women with (n = 299) and without (n = 101) asthma....
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - November 10, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Re: “addressing extreme propensity scores via the overlap weights”
In the article “Addressing Extreme Propensity Scores via the Overlap Weights” by Li et al. (1), the asymmetric propensity score (PS) trimming of St ürmer et al. (2) was incorrectly implemented as a comparative approach in the simulation study. This incorrect implementation led to large bias for estimating the average treatment effect. In this erratum, we provide corrected simulation results for asymmetric PS trimming. (Source: American Journal of Epidemiology)
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - November 6, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Racial Disparities in Health Among College-Educated African Americans: Can Attendance at Historically Black Colleges or Universities Reduce the Risk of Metabolic Syndrome in Midlife?
AbstractWe expand on existing understandings of health disparities among middle-class African Americans by examining how the postsecondary educational context gives rise to the unequal distribution of health. We used panel data (1994 –2009) from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to estimate whether the risk of developing metabolic syndrome by midlife significantly differs for African Americans who attended Historically Black College or Universities (HBCUs) versus predominantly White ins titutions. We found that HBCU enrollment was associated with a 35% reduction in the odds of met...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - November 5, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Re: “examination of cause-of-death data quality among new york city deaths due to cancer, pneumonia, or diabetes from 2010 to 2014”
In the article “Examination of Cause-of-Death Data Quality Among New York City Deaths Due to Cancer, Pneumonia, or Diabetes From 2010 to 2014” by Falci et al. (1), the reference number 34 (2) was incorrectly cited in columns 2 and 3 of row 5 in Table 1. This should be reference 33 (3). (Source: American Journal of Epidemiology)
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - November 5, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Parental Socioeconomic Status and Autism Spectrum Disorder in Offspring: A Population-Based Cohort Study in Taiwan
AbstractStudies from the United States have shown increasing incidence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with increasing socioeconomic status (SES), whereas in Scandinavian countries, no such relation was identified. We investigated how ASD risk in offspring varied according to parental SES in Taiwan, where there is universal health care. Through linking birth reporting data and data from Taiwan ’s national health insurance program, we studied 706,111 singleton births from 2004 to 2007 and followed them until 2015. Parental SES was determined by monthly salary at the time of childbirth, and child neuropsychiatric outcome...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - October 31, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Disseminated Effects in Agent-Based Models: A Potential Outcomes Framework and Application to Inform Preexposure Prophylaxis Coverage Levels for HIV Prevention
AbstractPreexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for prevention of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection may benefit not only the person who uses it but also their uninfected sexual risk contacts. We developed an agent-based model using a novel trial emulation approach to quantify disseminated effects of PrEP use among men who have sex with men in Atlanta, Georgia, from 2015 to 2017. Model components (subsets of agents connected through partnerships in a sexual network but not sharing partnerships with any other agents) were first randomized to an intervention coverage level or the control group; then, within intervention com...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - October 31, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Common Childhood Viruses and Pubertal Timing: The LEGACY Girls Study
AbstractEarlier pubertal development is only partially explained by childhood body mass index; the role of other factors, such as childhood infections, is less understood. Using data from the LEGACY Girls Study (North America, 2011 –2016), we prospectively examined the associations between childhood viral infections (cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), herpes simplex virus (HSV) 1, HSV2) and pubertal timing. We measured exposures based on seropositivity in premenarcheal girls (n = 490). Breast and pubic hair development were classified based on mother-reported Tanner Stage (TS) (TS2+ compared with TS1), adj...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - October 31, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
A Structured Approach to Evaluating Life-Course Hypotheses: Moving Beyond Analyses of Exposed Versus Unexposed in the -Omics Context
In this study, we performed simulations and empirical analyses to evaluate the performance of the SLCMA when applied to genomewide DNA methylation (DNAm). Using simulations (n = 700), we compared 5 statistical inference tests used with SLCMA, assessing the familywise error rate, statistical power, and confidence interval coverage to determine whether inference based on these tests was valid in the presence of substantial multiple testing and small effects—2 hallmark challenges of inference from -omics data. In the empirical analyses (n = 703), we evaluated the time-dependent relationship between childhood abuse and g...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - October 30, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Comparing New-User Cohort Designs: The Example of Proton Pump Inhibitor Effectiveness in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
AbstractThe prevalent new-user cohort design is useful for assessing the effectiveness of a medication in the absence of an active comparator. Alternative approaches, particularly in the presence of informative censoring, include a variant of this design based on never users of the study drug and the marginal structural Cox model approach. We compared these approaches in assessing the effectiveness of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) in reducing mortality among patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) using a cohort of IPF patients identified in the United Kingdom ’s Clinical Practice Research Datalink and diagnose...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - October 30, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Development and Validation of a Pediatric Comorbidity Index
AbstractComorbidity scores are widely used to help address confounding bias in nonrandomized studies conducted within health-care databases, but existing scores were developed to predict all-cause mortality in adults and might not be appropriate for use in pediatric studies. We developed and validated a pediatric comorbidity index, using health-care utilization data from the tenth revision of theInternational Classification of Diseases. Within the MarketScan database of US commercial claims data, pediatric patients (aged ≤18 years) continuously enrolled between October 1, 2015, and September 30, 2017, were identified. Lo...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - October 30, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Dealing With Treatment-Confounder Feedback and Sparse Follow-up in Longitudinal Studies: Application of a Marginal Structural Model in a Multiple Sclerosis Cohort
AbstractThe beta-interferons are widely prescribed platform therapies for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). We accessed a cohort of patients with relapsing-onset MS from British Columbia, Canada (1995 –2013), to examine the potential survival advantage associated with beta-interferon exposure using a marginal structural model. Accounting for potential treatment-confounder feedback between comorbidity, MS disease progression, and beta-interferon exposure, we found an association between beta-int erferon exposure of at least 6 contiguous months and improved survival (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.63, 95% confidence interval ...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - October 30, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Tracing Lung Cancer Risk Factors Through Mutational Signatures in Never-Smokers The Sherlock-Lung Study
AbstractEpidemiologic studies often rely on questionnaire data, exposure measurement tools, and/or biomarkers to identify risk factors and the underlying carcinogenic processes. An emerging and promising complementary approach to investigate cancer etiology is the study of somatic “mutational signatures” that endogenous and exogenous processes imprint on the cellular genome. These signatures can be identified from a complex web of somatic mutations thanks to advances in DNA sequencing technology and analytical algorithms. This approach is at the core of the Sherlock-Lung study (2018 –ongoing), a retrospective case-on...
Source: American Journal of Epidemiology - October 28, 2020 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
