Epidemiology Commons^™

Effect Of Alcohol Consumption On Cognitive Decline Among Mexican Adults, Silvia Mejia-Arango, Ihsan Salloum, Gladys E. Maestre

Research Symposium

Background: Studies on the association between alcohol use and cognitive impairment have yielded controversial results suggesting a reduced risk of dementia in drinkers vs. nondrinkers. We aimed to examine the effect of alcohol use on cognitive trajectories among Mexican adults aged 50 and over.

Methods: Data are from 5,898 cognitively normal individuals (2,512 men and 3,386 women) from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) with a mean age of 59 years (50-90 years) at baseline (2001) and followed-up after 11 years (2012). The Cross-Cultural Cognitive Examination was the cognitive battery measuring verbal memory, visual memory, attention, and …

Individual Risk Factors Associated With Cesarean Section Surgical Site Infections Among African American Women In California, Paula St Hill

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Work Ability Among Older Workers In An Agricultural Community In Nan Province, Thailand: A Cross-Sectional Study, Jate Ratanachina, Wilawan Mormoon

Chulalongkorn Medical Journal

Background: There is a global challenge regarding demographic change together with theaging population. Research on work ability among older workers in an agricultural area remains crucial, particularly in Thailand, an aged society country with thirty percent of its working population in the agricultural sector.

Objective: To estimate work ability among older workers in an agricultural community and to determine the relationship between work ability and its associations.

Methods: A cross-sectional study of adults aged 40 to 65 was conducted in an agricultural community in Nan province, Thailand, between May and August 2019. The study participants consisted of 345 villagers …

Changes In Real-World Dispensing Of Adhd Stimulants In Youth From 2019 To 2021 In California, Anika Patel, Rishikesh Chavan, Cyril Rakovski, Richard C. Beuttler, Sun Yang

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Introduction: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common pediatric neurobehavioral disorders in the U.S. Stimulants, classified as controlled substances, are commonly used for ADHD management. We conducted an analysis of real-world stimulants dispensing data to evaluate the pandemic’s impact on young patients (≤ 26 years) in California.

Methods: Annual prevalence of patients on stimulants per capita across various California counties from 2019 and 2021 were analyzed and further compared across different years, sexes, and age groups. New patients initiating simulants therapy were also examined. A case study was conducted to determine the impact of socioeconomic status on patient …

Treatment And Mortality Following Cancer Diagnosis Among People With Non-Affective Psychotic Disorders In Ontario, Canada: A Retrospective Cohort Study, Jared C. Wootten, Lucie Richard, Melody Lam, Phillip S. Blanchette, Marco Solmi, Kelly K. Anderson

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

Background and Hypothesis People with psychotic disorders have a higher risk of mortality following cancer diagnosis, compared to people without psychosis. The extent to which this disparity is influenced by differences in cancer-related treatment is currently unknown. We hypothesized that, following a cancer diagnosis, people with psychotic disorders were less likely to receive treatment and were at higher risk of death than those without psychosis. Study Design We constructed a retrospective cohort of cases of non-affective psychotic disorder (NAPD) and a general population comparison group, using Ontario Health (OH) administrative data. We identified cases of all cancers diagnosed between 1995 …

The Lymphoma Epidemiology Of Outcomes Cohort Study: Design, Baseline Characteristics, And Early Outcomes, James R Cerhan, Matthew J Maurer, Brian K Link, Andrew L Feldman, Thomas M Habermann, David L Jaye, W Richard Burack, Timothy J Mcdonnell, Francisco Vega, Jennifer R Chapman, Sergei Syrbu, Kiran R Vij, Giorgio Inghirami, John P Leonard, Leon Bernal-Mizrachi, Umar Farooq, Thomas E Witzig, George J Weiner, Yucai Wang, Juan P Alderuccio, Susan L Slager, Melissa C Larson, Shaun M Riska, Brianna J Gysbers, Julianne J Lunde, Tanner W Reicks, Amy A Ayers, Colin B O'Leary, Kathleen J Yost, Hongfang Liu, Grzegorz S Nowakowski, Jia Ruan, Dai Chihara, Jean L Koff, Carla Casulo, Carrie A Thompson, Jonathon B Cohen, Brad S Kahl, Loretta J Nastoupil, Izidore S Lossos, Jonathan W Friedberg, Peter Martin, Christopher R Flowers

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

To address the current and long-term unmet health needs of the growing population of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) patients, we established the Lymphoma Epidemiology of Outcomes (LEO) cohort study (NCT02736357; https://leocohort.org/). A total of 7735 newly diagnosed patients aged 18 years and older with NHL were prospectively enrolled from 7/1/2015 to 5/31/2020 at 8 academic centers in the United States. The median age at diagnosis was 62 years (range, 18-99). Participants came from 49 US states and included 538 Black/African-Americans (AA), 822 Hispanics (regardless of race), 3386 women, 716 age <40 >years, and 1513 rural residents. At study baseline, we abstracted clinical, …

Wastewater Surveillance For Identifying Sars-Cov-2 Infections In Long-Term Care Facilities, Kentucky, Usa, 2021–2022, James W. Keck, Reuben Adatorwovor, Matthew Liversedge, Blazan Mijotavich, Cullen Olsson, William D. Strike, Atena Amirsoleimani, Ann Noble, Soroosh Torabi, Alexus Lori Rockward, Mohammad Dehghan Banadaki, Ted Smith, Parker Lacy, Scott M. Berry

UK CARES Faculty Publications

Persons living in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) were disproportionately affected by COVID-19. We used wastewater surveillance to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection in this setting by collecting and testing 24-hour compos- ite wastewater samples 2–4 times weekly at 6 LTCFs in Kentucky, USA, during March 2021–February 2022. The LTCFs routinely tested staff and symptomatic and exposed residents for SARS-CoV-2 using rapid antigen tests. Of 780 wastewater samples analyzed, 22% (n = 173) had detectable SARS-CoV-2 RNA. The LTCFs reported 161 positive (of 16,905) SARS-CoV-2 clinical tests. The wastewater SARS-CoV-2 signal showed vari- able correlation with clinical test data; we observed the strongest …

Lung Cancer In Ever- And Never-Smokers: Findings From Multi-Population Gwas Studies, Yafang Li, Xiangjun Xiao, Jianrong Li, Younghun Han, Chao Cheng, Gail F Fernandes, Shannon E Slewitzke, Susan M Rosenberg, Meng Zhu, Jinyoung Byun, Yohan Bossé, James D Mckay, Demetrios Albanes, Stephen Lam, Adonina Tardon, Chu Chen, Stig E Bojesen, Maria T Landi, Mattias Johansson, Angela Risch, Heike Bickeböller, H-Erich Wichmann, David C Christiani, Gad Rennert, Susanne M Arnold, Gary E Goodman, John K Field, Michael P A Davies, Sanjay Shete, Loïc Le Marchand, Geoffrey Liu, Rayjean J Hung, Angeline S Andrew, Lambertus A Kiemeney, Ryan Sun, Shanbeh Zienolddiny, Kjell Grankvist, Mikael Johansson, Neil E Caporaso, Angela Cox, Yun-Chul Hong, Philip Lazarus, Matthew B Schabath, Melinda C Aldrich, Ann G Schwartz, Ivan Gorlov, Kristen S Purrington, Ping Yang, Yanhong Liu, Joan E Bailey-Wilson, Susan M Pinney, Diptasri Mandal, James C Willey, Colette Gaba, Paul Brennan, Jun Xia, Hongbing Shen, Christopher I Amos

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Clinical, molecular, and genetic epidemiology studies displayed remarkable differences between ever- and never-smoking lung cancer.

METHODS: We conducted a stratified multi-population (European, East Asian, and African descent) association study on 44,823 ever-smokers and 20,074 never-smokers to identify novel variants that were missed in the non-stratified analysis. Functional analysis including expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) colocalization and DNA damage assays, and annotation studies were conducted to evaluate the functional roles of the variants. We further evaluated the impact of smoking quantity on lung cancer risk for the variants associated with ever-smoking lung cancer.

RESULTS: Five novel independent loci, GABRA4, intergenic …

Identifying Environmental And Genetic Risk Factors Of Diseases In Case-Control Studies, Siting Li

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

In response to the increasing efforts in disease prevention and treatment, this thesis applies statistical methods to investigate environmental and genetic risk factors associated with two diseases: bladder cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). For bladder cancer, we investigated the association between toenail metal mixture and bladder cancer risk, along with gene expression levels associated with bladder cancer risk. For ALS, our investigation involves identifying genetic variants and gene expression levels associated with ALS risk and exploring gene-smoking interactions linked to ALS risk.

In chapter two, we developed an adaptive-mixture-categorization (AMC)-based g-computation method combining g-computation with optimized exposure categorization. We …

Efficacy Of A Primary Care Ehealth Obesity Treatment Pilot Intervention Developed For Vulnerable Pediatric Patients, Joshua S Yudkin, Marlyn A Allicock, Folefac D Atem, Carol A Galeener, Sarah E Messiah, Sarah E Barlow

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background:

Challenges to treat excess weight in primary care settings include time constraints during encounters and barriers to multiple visits for patient families, especially those from vulnerable backgrounds. Dynamo Kids! (DK), a bilingual (English/Spanish) e-health intervention, was created to address these system-level challenges. This pilot study assessed the effect of DK use on parent-reported healthy habits and child BMI.

Methods:

In this 3-month, quasi-experimental cohort design, DK was offered to parents with children aged 6–12 years with BMI ≥85th percentile in three public primary care sites in Dallas, Texas. DK included three educational modules, one tracking tool, recipes, and links …

Covid-19 Prevalence And Trends Among Pregnant And Postpartum Persons In Maine By Rurality And Pregnancy Conditions, Charlie O. Grantham, Christina M. Ackerman-Banks Md, Heather S. Lipkind Md, Ms, Kristin Palmsten Scd, Katherine A. Ahrens Mph, Phd

Journal of Maine Medical Center

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Blood Pressure Control In The Survival Of Peritoneal Dialysis Patients Using A Multistate Model, Hadis Najafimehr, Abbas Rahimi Foroushani, Mir Saeed Yekaninejad, Mahmoud Yousefifard, Mostafa Hosseini

Kesmas

Since less attention has been paid to the effect of passing blood pressure states on the survival of peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients, this study aimed to inves­tigate the survival of PD patients with and without hypertension, estimate the probability of hypertension and determine the influential factors. In this retro­spective cohort study, the data of 700 patients visiting dialysis centers from all provinces of Iran from 1997-2009 were analyzed. For data analysis, the multistate survival model was used. The median survival time (months) and five-year survival were 75% and 56%, respectively. Males had a higher probability of hypertension (63%) than females …

Road Traffic Noise Annoyance And Cardiovascular Disease Risk In Population: A Case Series Study In Kota Bharu, Malaysia, Faridah Naim, Nurin H M Nasir

Kesmas

Noise pollution can cause annoyance, significantly threatening the population’s health and well-being. This study aimed to find an association between road traffic noise exposure and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among residents in Kota Bharu, Malaysia. This descriptive study used a case series approach and surveyed 34 residents in selected residential areas near main roads. An adapted questionnaire was distributed to residents using a purposive sampling method. Questions related to sociodemographic information, self-reporting about CVD, and road traffic noise assessment were asked to investigate the underlying risk factors for CVD. The average score of CVD assessment was classified as moderate risk. …

An Independent Analysis Of A Retrospective Cohort Of 30,423 Covid-19 Patients Treated At Ihu-Mediterranean In Marseille, France: Part 2, A Real-Life Assessment Of Covid-19 Vaccination Efficacy, Valere Lounnas, Eleftherios Gkioulekas, Marc Rendell, Alexis Lacout, Xavier Azalbert, Christian Perronne

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

A cohort of 30,423 Covid-19 patients treated between March 2020 and December 2021 at the IHU-Méditerranée Infection in Marseille (France) was retrospectively analyzed in terms of treatment attempted and disease worsening factors to quantify vaccination efficacy with respect to the composite endpoint of transfer to intensive care unit or death, within a couple of months (56 days) from admission. Within limitations of the data and of the models, after adequate adjustment for sampling biases, multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to determine unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for the subset of patients admitted after the Covid-19 vaccination program was …

Path-Bigbird: An Ai-Driven Transformer Approach To Classification Of Cancer Pathology Reports, Mayanka Chandrashekar, Isaac Lyngaas, Heidi A. Hanson, Shang Gao, Xiao Cheng Wu, John Gounley

School of Public Health Faculty Publications

PURPOSE: Surgical pathology reports are critical for cancer diagnosis and management. To accurately extract information about tumor characteristics from pathology reports in near real time, we explore the impact of using domain-specific transformer models that understand cancer pathology reports. METHODS: We built a pathology transformer model, Path-BigBird, by using 2.7 million pathology reports from six SEER cancer registries. We then compare different variations of Path-BigBird with two less computationally intensive methods: Hierarchical Self-Attention Network (HiSAN) classification model and an off-the-shelf clinical transformer model (Clinical BigBird). We use five pathology information extraction tasks for evaluation: site, subsite, laterality, histology, and behavior. …

Description Of Cryptococcosis Following Sars-Cov-2 Infection: A Disease Survey Through The Mycosis Study Group Education And Research Consortium (Msg-19), Jeremey Walker, Todd Mccarty, Gerald Mcgwin, Eloy E Ordaya, Paschalis Vergidis, Luis Ostrosky-Zeichner, Mehriban Mammadova, Andrej Spec, Adriana M Rauseo, John Perfect, Julia Messina, Gabriel Vilchez, Rachel Mcmullen, Carolynn T Jones, Peter G Pappas

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Invasive fungal infections have been described throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Cryptococcal disease after infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been reported in several isolated case reports and 1 larger case series. We sought to describe cryptococcal infections following SARS-CoV-2 through establishing a database to investigate underlying risk factors, disease manifestations, and outcomes.

METHODS: We created a crowdsourced call for cases solicited through the Mycoses Study Group Education and Research Consortium, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Emerging Infectious Diseases Network, and infectious diseases Twitter groups. Data were collected in a web-based and secure REDCap …

Backfilling Patients In Phase I Dose-Escalation Trials Using Bayesian Optimal Interval Design (Boin), Yixuan Zhao, Ying Yuan, Edward L Korn, Boris Freidlin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

In recent years, there has been increased interest in incorporation of backfilling into dose-escalation clinical trials, which involves concurrently assigning patients to doses that have been previously cleared for safety by the dose-escalation design. Backfilling generates additional information on safety, tolerability, and preliminary activity on a range of doses below the maximum tolerated dose (MTD), which is relevant for selection of the recommended phase II dose and dose optimization. However, in practice, backfilling may not be rigorously defined in trial protocols and implemented consistently. Furthermore, backfilling designs require careful planning to minimize the probability of treating additional patients with potentially …

Evaluating The Oral Health-Related Quality Of Life Among Dental Patients In South India - A Descriptive Study, Dheekshitha P K, Sudeep C B Dr., Sunil P M Dr., Suji M Dr.

Annual Research Symposium

This study aims to evaluate the oral health-related quality of life among dental patients in South India.

The Association Between Cognitive Dysfunctions And Cardiovascular Disease Of Minority And Lgbtq+ Communities In The United States, Nathan G. De Shields

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Dementia, the loss of cognitive acuity is an umbrella term of neuro-degenerative symptoms that impact an estimated 6.5 million Americans, and amid heart disease, cancers, and emerging viruses, such as COVID-19, has reportedly increased in prevalence. A cross-sectional study of secondary data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) was conducted to analyze minority and non-heterosexual experiences of health risks found higher in prior studies of distress rates in LGBTQ+ adults. The socio-ecological framework was used to interpret the competing ecologies of social health determinants in natural and social settings. Literature reviews on cognitive dysfunction and other vascular …

Most Deprived Louisiana Census Tracts Have Higher Hepatocellular Carcinoma Incidence And Worse Survival, Kendra L. Ratnapradipa, Tingting Li, Mei Chin Hsieh, Laura Tenner, Edward S. Peters

School of Public Health Faculty Publications

Background: Liver cancer incidence increased in the US from 1975 through 2015 with heterogeneous rates across subpopulations. Upstream or distal area-level factors impact liver cancer risks. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the association between area-level deprivation and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) incidence and survival. We also explored the association between area deprivation and treatment modalities. Methods: Louisiana Tumor Registry identified 4,151 adult patients diagnosed with malignant HCC from 2011 to 2020 and linked residential address to census tract (CT)-level Area Deprivation Index (ADI) categorized into quartiles (Q1 = least deprived). ANOVA examined the association between ADI quartile …