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Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 20. Epub 2022 May 20.

Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 20. Epub 2022 May 20.

Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and Harvard Medical School.

At the time medical products are approved, we rarely know enough about their comparative safety and effectiveness vis-à-vis alternative therapies to advise patients and providers. Postmarket evidence generation to study rare adverse events following medical product exposure increasingly requires analysis of millions of longitudinal patient records that can provide complete capture of patient experiences. In the article by Pradhan et al. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 19. Epub 2022 May 19.

Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.

Vaccine hesitancy - the delay or refusal of vaccines despite their availability - has been linked to lower vaccination rates and outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Using cross-sectional surveys of 78,725 parents and other family members in the US, Nguyen et al. (Am J Epidemiol. Read More

Epidemiol Rev 2022 May 19. Epub 2022 May 19.

Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, School of Medicine, Stanford University.

In trials of infectious disease interventions, rare outcomes and unpredictable spatiotemporal variation can introduce bias, reduce statistical power, and prevent conclusive inferences. Spillover effects can complicate inference if individual randomization is used to gain efficiency. Ring trials are a type of cluster-randomized trial that may increase efficiency and minimize bias, particularly in emergency and elimination settings with strong clustering of infection. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 18. Epub 2022 May 18.

Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of São Paulo, Avenida Trabalhador São Carlense 400, São Carlos 13566-590, São Paulo, Brazil.

Dengue is a serious public health concern in Brazil and globally. In the absence of a universal vaccine or specific treatments, prevention relies on vector control and disease surveillance. Accurate and early forecasts can help reduce the spread of the disease. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 17. Epub 2022 May 17.

Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC University Medical Centre Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

We assessed the impacts of Tanzania's Cash Plus adolescent-focused intervention on depression. In this pragmatic cluster-randomized controlled trial, 130 villages were randomly allocated to intervention or control (1:1). Youth aged 14-19 years living in households receiving governmental cash transfers were invited to participate. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 11. Epub 2022 May 11.

Professor emeritus, Department of Microbiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

In this brief Commentary, Neal Nathanson recounts his memories of the metamorphosis of the American Journal of Hygiene to the American Journal of Epidemiology, and his subsequent service as the Editor-in-Chief, from 1964 to 1979. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 11. Epub 2022 May 11.

Department of Population Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States.

Smoke-free housing policies are intended to reduce the deleterious health effects of secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure, but there is limited evidence regarding their health impacts. We examined associations between implementation of a federal smoke-free housing rule by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and pediatric Medicaid claims for asthma, lower respiratory infections (LRIs), and upper respiratory infections (URIs) in the early post-policy period. We used geocoded address data to match children living in tax lots with NYCHA buildings (exposed to policy) to children living in lots with other subsidized housing (unexposed to policy). Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 6. Epub 2022 May 6.

Division of General Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

Light exposure at night impedes sleep and shifts the circadian clock. An extensive body of literature has linked sleep deprivation and circadian misalignment with cardiac disease, cancer, mental health disorders, and other chronic illnesses, as well as more immediate risks, such as motor vehicle crashes and occupational injuries. In the current issue of the journal, Zhong et al. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 6. Epub 2022 May 6.

Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 5. Epub 2022 May 5.

Department of Epidemiology, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC.

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 5. Epub 2022 May 5.

CAUSALab, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA.

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 4. Epub 2022 May 4.

Department of Biostatistics, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States.

Inverse probability weighting (IPW) and targeted maximum likelihood estimation (TMLE) are methodologies that can adjust for confounding and selection bias that are often used for causal inference. Both estimators rely on the positivity assumption that within strata of confounders there is a positive probability of receiving treatment at all levels under consideration. Practical applications of IPW require finite IP weights. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 May 4. Epub 2022 May 4.

The University of Sydney, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Sydney Medical School, Discipline of Bioinformatics and Digital Health.

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 27. Epub 2022 Apr 27.

Department of Biology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA.

As variants of SARS-CoV-2 have emerged through 2021-2022, the need to maximize vaccination coverage across the United States to minimize severe outcomes of COVID-19 has been critical. Maximizing vaccination requires that we track vaccination patterns to measure the progress of the vaccination campaign and target locations that may be undervaccinated. To improve efforts to track and characterize COVID-19 vaccination progress in the United States, we integrate CDC and state-provided vaccination data, identifying and rectifying discrepancies between these data sources. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 26. Epub 2022 Apr 26.

Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.

Few prospective studies have examined associations between diet quality and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), or comprehensively compared diet quality indices. We conducted a prospective analysis of adherence to the Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2015, alternative HEI-2010 (AHEI-2010), alternate Mediterranean diet (aMED), and two Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH, Fung and Mellen) indices and PDAC within the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-AARP Diet and Health Study (United States, 1995-2011). The dietary quality indices were calculated using responses from a 124-item food frequency questionnaire completed by 535,824 (315,780 men and 220,044 women) participants. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 25. Epub 2022 Apr 25.

Department of Nutrition and UNC Nutrition Research Institute, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Growth in early infancy is hypothesized to affect chronic disease risk factors later in life. To date, most reports draw on European ancestry cohorts with few repeated observations in early infancy. We investigated the association between infant growth before six months and lipid levels in adolescents in a Hispanic/Latino cohort. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 22. Epub 2022 Apr 22.

Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 22. Epub 2022 Apr 22.

Urban Health Collaborative, Drexel Dornsife School of Public Health, Philadelphia, PA.

Differences in vaccination coverage can perpetuate COVID-19 disparities. We explored the association between neighborhood-level social vulnerability and COVID-19 vaccination coverage in 16 large US cities from the beginning of the vaccination campaign in December 2020 through September 2021. We calculated the proportion of fully vaccinated adults in 866 zip code tabulation areas (ZCTA) of 16 large US cities: Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose (CA); Chicago (IL); Indianapolis (IN); Minneapolis (MN); New York City (NY); Philadelphia (PA); and Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio (TX). Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 21. Epub 2022 Apr 21.

Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health.

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 21. Epub 2022 Apr 21.

Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

All else equal, if we have one causal effect we wish to estimate, we would conduct the randomized trial with a protocol that maps onto that causal question, or we would attempt to emulate that target trial with observational data. However, studying the social determinants of health often means there is not just one but several causal contrasts of simultaneous interest and importance, and each of these related but distinct causal questions may have varying degrees of feasibility in conducting trials. With this in mind, we discuss challenges and opportunities when conducting and emulating such trials. Read More

Epidemiol Rev 2022 Apr 20. Epub 2022 Apr 20.

Department of Epidemiology, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia.

Although observational studies have identified modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD), randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of risk factor modification for ADRD prevention have been inconsistent or inconclusive. This suggests a need to improve translation between observational studies and RCTs. However, many common features of observational studies reduce their relevance to designing related RCTs. Read More

Epidemiol Rev 2022 Apr 20. Epub 2022 Apr 20.

Department of Epidemiology, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The uveitides consist of over 30 diseases characterized by intraocular inflammation. Non-infectious intermediate, posterior, and panuveitides typically are treated with oral corticosteroids and immunosuppression with a similar treatment approach for most diseases. Because non-infectious intermediate, posterior and panuveitides collectively are considered a rare disease, single disease trials are difficult to impractical to recruit, and most trials have included several different diseases for a given protocol treatment(s). Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 20. Epub 2022 Apr 20.

Population Research Unit, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.

Poor mental health among the unemployed - the long-term unemployed in particular - is established, but these associations may be driven by confounding from unobserved, time-invariant characteristics such as past experiences and personality. Using longitudinal register data on 2,720,431 residents aged 30-60, we assess how current unemployment and unemployment history predict visits to specialized care due to psychiatric conditions and self-harm in Finland in 2008-2018. We estimate linear ordinary least squares and fixed effects models. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 16. Epub 2022 Apr 16.

Boston University School of Public Health, Department of Biostatistics, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease associated with exposure to repetitive head impacts (RHI) such as those from American football. Our understanding of this association is based on research in autopsied brains since CTE can only be diagnosed postmortem. Such studies are susceptible to selection bias, which needs to be accounted for to ensure a generalizable estimate of the association between RHI and CTE. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 16. Epub 2022 Apr 16.

Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.

Studies have suggested that adults with gallbladder disease have increased risk of type 2 diabetes. This prospective cohort study assesses the risk of type 2 diabetes in postmenopausal women with gallbladder disease. Data from women aged 50-79 years (Mean 63. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 16. Epub 2022 Apr 16.

Department of Pediatrics, Division of Environmental Pediatrics, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, 10016, USA.

While racial/ethnic differences in fetal growth have been documented, few studies have examined whether they vary by exogenous factors, which could elucidate underlying causes. The purpose of this study was to characterize longitudinal fetal growth patterns by maternal sociodemographic, behavioral, and clinical factors and examine whether associations with maternal race/ethnicity varied by these other predictors. Between 2016-2019, pregnant women receiving prenatal care at NYU Langone were invited to participate in a birth cohort study. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 14. Epub 2022 Apr 14.

Department of Cancer Epidemiology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida.

In 1986, Willett and Stampfer propelled the nutritional epidemiology field forward by publishing a commentary emphasizing the importance of analyzing diet in relation to total energy intake in epidemiologic analyses of diet and disease, detailing the value of accounting for body size, physical activity, and metabolic efficiency in diet-disease analyses via energy intake adjustment. Their publication has since been cited over 2,886 times and has inarguably advanced methodology for studying diet-disease associations, with most nutritional epidemiology studies standardly including some form of energy adjustment. However, there remains debate regarding the best scenarios and methods for energy adjustment. Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 14. Epub 2022 Apr 14.

Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.

It has been reported that residents of low socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods have a higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (CVD). However, most of the previous studies focused on one-time measurement of neighborhood SES in middle-to-older adulthood and lacked demographic diversity to allow for comparisons across different race-and-sex groups. We examined neighborhood SES in childhood, and young, middle, and older adulthood in association with the risk for CVD in Black and White men and women in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (1996-2019). Read More

Am J Epidemiol 2022 Apr 6. Epub 2022 Apr 6.

Department of Epidemiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive disorder common among older adults and culminating in profound cognitive impairments and high mortality risk. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently provided accelerated approval for Aduhelm, a medication for AD treatment. Aduhelm has been described as the first disease-modifying treatment for AD but has not been demonstrated to improve patients' cognitive or functional outcomes. Read More