Fathers Matter: Why It ’s Time to Consider the Impact of Paternal Environmental Exposures on Children’s Health
AbstractPurposeDespite accumulating evidence from experimental animal studies showing that paternal environmental exposures induce genetic and epigenetic alterations in sperm which in turn increase the risk of adverse health outcomes in offspring, there is limited epidemiological data on the effects of human paternal preconception exposures on children ’s health. We summarize animal and human studies showing that paternal preconception environmental exposures influence offspring health. We discuss specific approaches and designs for human studies to investigate the health effects of paternal preconception exposures, the ...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - January 10, 2017 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Toward an Understanding of the Challenges and Opportunities when Studying Emerging Therapies
AbstractPurpose of ReviewEmerging therapies and devices may be subject to rapid changes in prescribing or use over short periods, due to recent market launch, approval of a new indication, competitive displacement, or safety warnings. In safety and effectiveness studies of such products, rapid changes in prescribing lead to analytic challenges and opportunities, which may themselves be of interest. This paper discusses how to identify dynamic patterns in dissemination or use, and how to account for and potentially take advantage of these patterns in safety and effectiveness studies.Recent FindingsFor every new-to-market dr...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - October 26, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Invited Commentary on Quasi-Experiments: Going Beyond the Observational and Experimental Dichotomy in Epidemiological Study Design
AbstractᅟClassically, epidemiological investigations are restricted to two dichotomous options: experimental studies on one side and observational studies on the other. Experimental studies, particularly randomized trials, are powerful instruments for producing knowledge in health sciences. However, in se veral situations, such studies are not feasible. On the other hand, observational studies that investigate the effect of “exposures,” even when using prospective approaches frequently lose the opportunity to observe, capture, and report the effects of policies and other interventions. In situati ons in which the use...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - October 11, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Invited Commentary on the Study of Medications in Pregnancy
(Source: Current Epidemiology Reports)
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - October 7, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Case-Control Studies & amp; the Hierarchy of Study Design
(Source: Current Epidemiology Reports)
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - October 6, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Methodologic Issues when Estimating Risks in Pharmacoepidemiology
AbstractPurpose of ReviewRisk is an important parameter to describe the occurrence of health outcomes over time. However, many outcomes of interest in healthcare settings, such as disease incidence, treatment initiation, and cause-specific mortality, may be precluded from occurring by other events, often referred to as competing events. Here, we review straightforward approaches to estimate risk in the presence of competing events.Recent FindingsWe illustrate the application of these methods using timely examples in pharmacoepidemiologic research and compare results to those obtained using analytic simplifications commonly...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - September 12, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
A Review of Disease Risk Scores and Their Application in Pharmacoepidemiology
AbstractSummary scores that reduce baseline covariate information to a single value have become standard tools for confounding control in pharmacoepidemiologic studies. The propensity score (PS) summarizes covariate associations with treatment assignment and has been the most widely used summary score for confounding control. An alternative to the PS is the prognostic score, often referred to as the disease risk score (DRS). Instead of summarizing covariate associations with treatment, the DRS summarizes covariate associations with potential outcomes. Adjustment based on the DRS has unique challenges and limitations compar...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - September 9, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Regression Discontinuity for Causal Effect Estimation in Epidemiology
AbstractRegression discontinuity analyses can generate estimates of the causal effects of an exposure when a continuously measured variable is used to assign the exposure to individuals based on a threshold rule. Individuals just above the threshold are expected to be similar in their distribution of measured and unmeasured baseline covariates to individuals just below the threshold, resulting in exchangeability. At the threshold exchangeability is guaranteed if there is random variation in the continuous assignment variable, e.g., due to random measurement error. Under exchangeability, causal effects can be identified ...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - August 4, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Erratum to: Trends in the Mechanistic and Dynamic Modeling of Infectious Diseases
(Source: Current Epidemiology Reports)
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - August 4, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Population Attributable and Preventable Fractions: Cancer Risk Factor Surveillance, and Cancer Policy Projection
AbstractThe proportions of new cancer cases and deaths that are caused by exposure to risk factors and that could be prevented are key statistics for public health policy and planning. This paper summarizes the methodologies for estimating, challenges in the analysis of, and utility of, population attributable and preventable fractions for cancers caused by major risk factors such as tobacco smoking, dietary factors, high body fat, physical inactivity, alcohol consumption, infectious agents, occupational exposure, air pollution, sun exposure, and insufficient breastfeeding. For population attributable and preventable fract...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - July 31, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Dependent Happenings: a Recent Methodological Review
AbstractOne hundred years ago, Sir Ronald Ross published his treatise on a general theory of happenings. Dependent happenings are those in which the frequency depends on the number already affected. When there is dependency of events, interventions can have different types of effects. Interventions such as vaccination can have direct protective effects for the person receiving the treatment, as well as indirect/spillover effects for others in the population. Causal inference is a framework for carefully defining the causal effect of a treatment, exposure, or policy, and then determining conditions under which such effects ...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - July 27, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Height and Risk of Adult Cancers: a Review
Abstract
Recent prospective studies have revealed modest positive associations of adult height with risk of all cancers as well as risk of cancers at most anatomical sites, including cancers of the colon, rectum, liver, skin melanoma, breast, corpus uteri, ovary, prostate, kidney, central nervous system, thyroid, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma and leukaemia. These associations, which do not appear to be explained by bias or confounding, highlight the importance of early life exposures in the aetiology of cancer. The mechanisms underlying the height-cancer associations are not known but height ...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - July 14, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Trends in the Mechanistic and Dynamic Modeling of Infectious Diseases
Abstract
The dynamics of infectious disease epidemics are driven by interactions between individuals with differing disease status (e.g., susceptible, infected, immune). Mechanistic models that capture the dynamics of such “dependent happenings” are a fundamental tool of infectious disease epidemiology. Recent methodological advances combined with access to new data sources and computational power have resulted in an explosion in the use of dynamic models in the analysis of emerging and established infectious diseases. Increasing use of models to inform practical public health decision making has chal...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - July 1, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
SMART Thinking: a Review of Recent Developments in Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trials
Abstract
With the increasing interest in personalized medicine, over the last decade, sequential multiple assignment randomized trials (SMARTs) have become a more common fixture of the clinical trial landscape. Primarily of use in the identification of dynamic treatment regimes, they have experienced a shift from the more complex designs of the past to the considerably streamlined versions seen today. In this review, we summarize their history, outline recent and ongoing examples, and discuss some of the important methodological developments for their design and implementation. (Source: Current Epidemiology Reports)
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - July 1, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
Lyme Disease
Abstract
Lyme disease is caused by the spirochetal bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi and transmitted by ticks in the genus Ixodes. The key reservoirs for the spirochete include rodents and birds, and the primary hosts for ticks include rodents, birds, and lizards for immature stages and large mammal for the adults. Since its recognition in the USA in the 1970s, it has continued to emerge, increasing both in case numbers and geographic distribution. In the last two decades, a number of new findings have been observed, including a vast increase in disease distribution, additional Borrelia species causing diseas...
Source: Current Epidemiology Reports - June 30, 2016 Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research
