Annals of Epidemiology

PURPOSE: In occupational epidemiology, the healthy worker survivor effect can manifest as a time-dependent confounder because healthier workers can accrue greater amounts of exposure over longer periods of employment. For example, in occupational studies of radiation exposure that focus on cumulative annualized radiation dose, workers can accrue greater amounts of cumulative radiation exposure over longer periods of employment, while workers with longer periods of employment can transition into jobs with a reduced potential for annualized radiation exposure...

PURPOSE: We investigated whether socioeconomic inequalities in young adolescents' mental health are partially due to the unequal distribution of childhood obesity across socioeconomic positions (SEP), i.e. differential exposure, or due to the effect of obesity on mental health being more detrimental among certain SEPs, i.e. differential impact. METHODS: We studied 4660 participants of the Generation R study, a population-based study in the Netherlands. SEP was estimated by mother's education and household income at age five of the child...

PURPOSE: We assessed the risk of congenital anomalies in children who have a sibling with cancer. METHODS: We performed a matched cohort study of children born between 2006 and 2022 in Quebec. The exposure was having a sibling with cancer. Exposed children were matched to unexposed children based on sex, number of siblings, birth order, and year. The outcome included heart defects, orofacial clefts, and other anomalies. Using conditional logistic regression, we estimated odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between having a sibling with cancer and the likelihood of having a congenital anomaly...

BACKGROUND: Data collection by mailing questionnaires to the study population is one of the main research methods in epidemiologic studies. As participation rates are decreasing, easy-to-implement and cost-effective strategies to increase survey participation are needed. In this study, we tested the effect of a pragmatic combination of evidence-based interventions. METHODS: We conducted a two-armed randomized controlled trial, nested in a cohort of breast cancer survivors (n=1000) in the setting of a health outcomes survey...

PURPOSE: Longitudinal studies are essential for examining how social and institutional determinants of health, historical and contemporary, affect disparities in COVID-19 related outcomes. The unequal impacts of COVID-19 likely exacerbated selected attrition in longitudinal research. This study examines attrition and survey mode effects in the SHOW COVID-19 study which recruited from a statewide, representative cohort. MATERIALS & METHODS: Participants were recruited from the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW) cohort...

PURPOSE: This study examined the associations between individual as well as neighborhood social vulnerability and sports and recreation-related traumatic brain injury (SR-TBI) hospitalizations among pediatric patients in the U.S. METHODS: We obtained 2009, 2010 and 2011 hospitalization data in the U.S. from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database, linked it to 2010 neighborhood social vulnerability index (SVI) data from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), and assigned U...

PURPOSE: Although Premetabolic syndrome (PeMetSyn) is a precursor for metabolic syndrome (MetSyn), its prevalence and trends are unknown. This study examined the prevalence and trends in PreMetSyn and its association with sociodemographic risk factors in American adults. METHODS: The 1999-2000 to 2017-2020 United States National Health and Nutritional Health Surveys (NHANES) data were used. PreMetSyn was defined as co-occurrence two cardiometabolic risk factors consisting of abdominal obesity, elevated triglycerides, reduced HDL-C, elevated blood pressure, and fasting plasma glucose...

Epigenetic clocks are emerging as tools for assessing acceleration and deceleration of biological age during childhood. Maternal depression during pregnancy may affect the biological aging of offspring and related development. In a low-income cohort of mother-child dyads, we investigated the relationship between prenatal maternal depressive symptoms and infant epigenetic age residuals, which represent the deviation (acceleration or deceleration) that exists between predicted biological age and chronological age...

PURPOSE: To determine the impact of abortion legislation on mental health during pregnancy and postpartum and assess whether pregnancy intention mediates associations. METHODS: We quantified associations between restrictive abortion laws and stress, depression symptoms during and after pregnancy, and depression diagnoses after pregnancy using longitudinal data from Nurses' Health Study 3 in 2010-2017 (4,091 participants, 4,988 pregnancies) using structural equation models with repeated measures, controlling for sociodemographics, prior depression, state economic and sociopolitical measures (unemployment rate, gender wage gap, Gini index, percentage of state legislatures who are women, Democratic governor)...

PURPOSE: To examine whether hospital closure is associated with high levels of area socioeconomic disadvantage and racial/ethnic minority composition. METHODS: Pooled cross-sectional analysis (2007-2018) of 6,467 U.S. hospitals from the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey, comparing hospital population characteristics of closed hospitals to all remaining open hospitals. We used multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression models to assess closure as a function of population characteristics, including area deprivation index ([ADI], a composite measure of socioeconomic disadvantage), racial/ethnic composition, and rural classification, nesting hospitals within hospital service areas (HSAs) and hospital referral regions...

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PURPOSE: To estimate the association between COVID-19 vaccination status at the time of COVID-19 onset and long COVID prevalence. METHODS: We used data from the Michigan COVID-19 Recovery Surveillance Study, a population-based probability sample of adults with COVID-19 (n=4,695). We considered 30-day and 90-day long COVID (illness duration ≥30 or ≥90 days, respectively), using Poisson regression to estimate prevalence ratios (PRs) comparing vaccinated (completed an initial series ≥14 days before COVID-19 onset) to unvaccinated individuals (received 0 doses before COVID-19 onset), accounting for differences in age, sex, race and ethnicity, education, employment, health insurance, and rurality/urbanicity...

PURPOSE: This study assesses risk factors of loss to follow-up (LTFU) and estimates mortality risk among female sex workers (FSW) with HIV in Durban, South Africa, in 2018-2021. METHODS: We used data from the Siyaphambili trial, which evaluated strategies for improved viral suppression. FSW with HIV aged ≥18 years with viral load ≥50 copies/mL were followed up for 18 months. LTFU was defined as absence from study or intervention visits for 6 months...

INTRODUCTION: Passive smoking is considered a major public health issue in China. Prospective evidence regarding the link between secondhand smoke (SHS) and ischemic stroke in China is scarce. METHODS: The China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) study in Liuzhou City recruited 50,174 participants during 2004-2008. Of these 30,456 never-smokers were included in our study. The median follow-up period was 10.7 years. The incidence of ischemic stroke was obtained through the China Disease Surveillance Points (DSP) system and the Health Insurance (HI) database...

BACKGROUND: The U.S. Deep South bears a disproportionate burden of HIV and other STIs. Transactional sex may influence these epidemics, but few studies have estimated its prevalence or correlates in the Deep South. METHODS: We estimated the history of transactional sex among adults accessing an Alabama AIDS Service Organization from 2008-2022, using chi-square tests to examine its sociodemographic and behavioral correlates. We used modified Poisson regression with cluster-robust standard errors to estimate adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the associations between transactional sex and new HIV, hepatitis C (HCV), and STI diagnoses...

PURPOSE: During the early COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in weight gain among the general population was observed; however, gestational weight gain (GWG) was not thoroughly evaluated. We evaluated changes in GWG during the pandemic closures in South Carolina. METHODS: We used live, singleton birth records to compare GWG outcomes among three pregnancy groups occurring before (January 2018-February 2020), during (March-May 2020), and after (June 2020-December 2021) pandemic closures...

PURPOSE: To examine changes in death rates by demographic group and by the leading causes of death in U.S. persons 1 to 24 years of age during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A retrospective cross-sectional study using mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System from April 2017 to March 2023. Pre-pandemic death rates were compared with death rates during the pandemic overall, by race/ethnicity, age, sex, and cause group. RESULTS: Age-adjusted death rates in young persons 1-24 years of age increased by 14...

PURPOSE: A recent meta-analysis finds reduced risk of preterm birth (PTB; <37 weeks gestational age) during the initial stage of COVID-19 in which infection rates remained relatively low but many societies imposed restrictions on movement. None of this work, however, examines sex-specific responses despite much literature on other ambient "shocks" which would predict male sensitivity. We use a conception cohort approach to explore potential sex-specific PTB responses in France, a country which imposed a lockdown in Spring 2020...

BACKGROUND: To estimate associations between facets of the maternal childhood family environment with gestational diabetes (GDM) and to test mediation by pre-pregnancy waist circumference. METHODS: We used data from CARDIA, a cohort of individuals aged 18-30 years at baseline (1985-86), followed over 30 years (2016). We included participants with one or more pregnancies ≥ 20 weeks after baseline, without pre-pregnancy diabetes. The primary exposure was the Childhood Family Environment Scale (assessed year 15), including the total score and abuse, nurture, and stability subscales as continuous, separate exposures...

BACKGROUND: Depression is associated with incident coronary heart disease (CHD) via a pathway that may be causal, but the mechanisms underlying this association are unclear. We assessed the extent to which metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its components (i.e., elevated waist circumference, low high-density lipoprotein [HDL] cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, elevated blood pressure, and elevated fasting plasma glucose) may mediate this association. METHODS: Data were Framingham Heart Study Research Materials obtained from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Biologic Specimen and Data Repository Information Coordinating Center...