scholarly journals Exploring the evidence for epigenetic regulation of environmental influences on child health across generations

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie V. Breton ◽  
Remy Landon ◽  
Linda G. Kahn ◽  
Michelle Bosquet Enlow ◽  
Alicia K. Peterson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Health Effects ◽  
Epigenetic Regulation ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Environmental Exposures ◽  
Psychosocial Stressors ◽  
Genetic Studies ◽  
Childhood Disorders ◽  
Putative Mechanism

AbstractEnvironmental exposures, psychosocial stressors and nutrition are all potentially important influences that may impact health outcomes directly or via interactions with the genome or epigenome over generations. While there have been clear successes in large-scale human genetic studies in recent decades, there is still a substantial amount of missing heritability to be elucidated for complex childhood disorders. Mounting evidence, primarily in animals, suggests environmental exposures may generate or perpetuate altered health outcomes across one or more generations. One putative mechanism for these environmental health effects is via altered epigenetic regulation. This review highlights the current epidemiologic literature and supporting animal studies that describe intergenerational and transgenerational health effects of environmental exposures. Both maternal and paternal exposures and transmission patterns are considered, with attention paid to the attendant ethical, legal and social implications.

scholarly journals Causal Modeling in Environmental Health

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Abèle Bind
Keyword(s):  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Causal Inference ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Health Effects ◽  
Nonlinear Function ◽  
Environmental Exposures ◽  
Causal Modeling ◽  
Health Impacts

The field of environmental health has been dominated by modeling associations, especially by regressing an observed outcome on a linear or nonlinear function of observed covariates. Readers interested in advances in policies for improving environmental health are, however, expecting to be informed about health effects resulting from, or more explicitly caused by, environmental exposures. The quantification of health impacts resulting from the removal of environmental exposures involves causal statements. Therefore, when possible, causal inference frameworks should be considered for analyzing the effects of environmental exposures on health outcomes.

The Use of Medical Record Linkage for Population and Genetic Studies

1969 ◽  
Vol 08 (01) ◽  
pp. 07-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. B. Newcombe
Keyword(s):  
Record Linkage ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Medical Record Linkage ◽  
Canadian Province ◽  
Genetic Studies ◽  
Parental Characteristics ◽  
Family Histories ◽  
The Family ◽  
Large Populations ◽  
Machine Readable

Methods are described for deriving personal and family histories of birth, marriage, procreation, ill health and death, for large populations, from existing civil registrations of vital events and the routine records of ill health. Computers have been used to group together and »link« the separately derived records pertaining to successive events in the lives of the same individuals and families, rapidly and on a large scale. Most of the records employed are already available as machine readable punchcards and magnetic tapes, for statistical and administrative purposes, and only minor modifications have been made to the manner in which these are produced.As applied to the population of the Canadian province of British Columbia (currently about 2 million people) these methods have already yielded substantial information on the risks of disease: a) in the population, b) in relation to various parental characteristics, and c) as correlated with previous occurrences in the family histories.

scholarly journals Assessing the indirect effects of COVID-19 on healthcare delivery, utilization and health outcomes: a scoping review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte M Roy ◽  
E Brennan Bollman ◽  
Laura M Carson ◽  
Alexander J Northrop ◽  
Elizabeth F Jackson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Health Effects ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Cardiovascular Health ◽  
Healthcare Delivery ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
High Income ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Local Health

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic and global efforts to contain its spread, such as stay-at-home orders and transportation shutdowns, have created new barriers to accessing healthcare, resulting in changes in service delivery and utilization globally. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the literature published thus far on the indirect health effects of COVID-19 and to explore the data sources and methodologies being used to assess indirect health effects. Methods A scoping review of peer-reviewed literature using three search engines was performed. Results One hundred and seventy studies were included in the final analysis. Nearly half (46.5%) of included studies focused on cardiovascular health outcomes. The main methodologies used were observational analytic and surveys. Data were drawn from individual health facilities, multicentre networks, regional registries, and national health information systems. Most studies were conducted in high-income countries with only 35.4% of studies representing low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Conclusion Healthcare utilization for non-COVID-19 conditions has decreased almost universally, across both high- and lower-income countries. The pandemic’s impact on non-COVID-19 health outcomes, particularly for chronic diseases, may take years to fully manifest and should be a topic of ongoing study. Future research should be tied to system improvement and the promotion of health equity, with researchers identifying potentially actionable findings for national, regional and local health leadership. Public health professionals must also seek to address the disparity in published data from LMICs as compared with high-income countries.

scholarly journals Efficacy and Underlying Mechanism of Acupuncture in the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Systematic Review of Animal Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 1575
Author(s):  
Chan-Young Kwon ◽  
Boram Lee ◽  
Sang-Ho Kim
Keyword(s):  
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
Posttraumatic Stress ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Methodological Quality ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Stress Disorder ◽  
Spatial Learning And Memory ◽  
Expectancy Effects ◽  
Therapeutic Mechanisms

Acupuncture is a nonpharmacological intervention that can be useful in the clinical management of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), especially in situations with a lack of medical resources, including large-scale PTSD events such as disasters. Some clinical studies have reported the clinical effect of acupuncture in improving PTSD symptoms, but the underlying therapeutic mechanism has yet to be explored. Therefore, this review summarized the underlying therapeutic mechanisms of acupuncture in animal PTSD models. A comprehensive search was conducted in 14 electronic databases, and two independent researchers performed study selection, data extraction, and the methodological quality assessment. Twenty-four relevant studies were included in this review and summarized according to the proposed main mechanisms. In behavioral evaluation, acupuncture, including manual acupuncture and electro-acupuncture, reduced anxiety and fear responses and weakened fear conditioning, improved sleep architecture, reduced depressive symptoms, and alleviated disturbance of spatial learning and memory of PTSD animal models. The therapeutic mechanisms of acupuncture proposed in the included studies could be classified into two categories: (1) regulation of stress responses in the neuroendocrine system and (2) promotion of neuroprotection, neurogenesis, and synaptic plasticity in several brain areas. However, the methodological quality of the included animal studies was not high enough to produce robust evidence. In addition, mechanistic studies on specific aspects of acupuncture that may affect PTSD, including expectancy effects, in human PTSD subjects are also needed.

High-throughput quantification of the mechanical competence of murine femora — A highly automated approach for large-scale genetic studies

Bone ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 216-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Ruffoni ◽  
T. Kohler ◽  
R. Voide ◽  
A.J. Wirth ◽  
L.R. Donahue ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Throughput ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Genetic Studies

scholarly journals A Systematic Review and Appraisal of Epidemiological Studies on Household Fuel Use and Its Health Effects Using Demographic and Health Surveys

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1411
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Odo ◽  
Ian A. Yang ◽  
Luke D. Knibbs
Keyword(s):  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Exposure Assessment ◽  
Health Effects ◽  
Low Birthweight ◽  
Respiratory Infections ◽  
Epidemiological Studies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Demographic And Health Surveys ◽  
Fuel Use ◽  
Cooking Fuel

The domestic combustion of polluting fuels is associated with an estimated 3 million premature deaths each year and contributes to climate change. In many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), valid and representative estimates of people exposed to household air pollution (HAP) are scarce. The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) is an important and consistent source of data on household fuel use for cooking and has facilitated studies of health effects. However, the body of research based on DHS data has not been systematically identified, nor its strengths and limitations critically assessed as a whole. We aimed to systematically review epidemiological studies using DHS data that considered cooking fuel type as the main exposure, including the assessment of the extent and key drivers of bias. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and the DHS publication portal. We assessed the quality and risk of bias (RoB) of studies using a novel tool. Of 2748 records remaining after removing duplicates, 63 were read in full. A total of 45 out of 63 studies were included in our review, spanning 11 different health outcomes and representing 50 unique analyses. In total, 41 of 45 (91%) studies analysed health outcomes in children <5 years of age, including respiratory infections (n = 17), death (all-cause) (n = 14), low birthweight (n = 5), stunting and anaemia (n = 5). Inconsistencies were observed between studies in how cooking fuels were classified into relatively high- and low-polluting. Overall, 36/50 (80%) studies reported statistically significant adverse associations between polluting fuels and health outcomes. In total, 18/50 (36%) of the analyses were scored as having moderate RoB, while 16/50 (32%) analyses were scored as having serious or critical RoB. Although HAP exposure assessment is not the main focus of the DHS, it is the main, often only, source of information in many LMICs. An appreciable proportion of studies using it to analyse the association between cooking fuel use and health have potential for high RoB, mostly related to confounder control, exposure assessment and misclassification, and outcome ascertainment. Based on our findings, we provide some suggestions for ways in which revising the information collected by the DHS could make it even more amenable to studies of household fuel use and health, and reduce the RoB, without being onerous to collect and analyse.

scholarly journals Effects of a Large-Scale Unconditional Cash Transfer Program on Mental Health Outcomes of Young People in Kenya

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Kilburn ◽  
Harsha Thirumurthy ◽  
Carolyn Tucker Halpern ◽  
Audrey Pettifor ◽  
Sudhanshu Handa
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Young People ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Mental Health Outcomes ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Unconditional Cash Transfer

scholarly journals The daunting polygenicity of mental illness: making a new map

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1742) ◽  
pp. 20170031 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven E. Hyman
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Human Biology ◽  
Genetic Studies ◽  
Computational Tools ◽  
Experimental Systems ◽  
Terra Incognita ◽  
Phenotypic Complexity

An epochal opportunity to elucidate the pathogenic mechanisms of psychiatric disorders has emerged from advances in genomic technology, new computational tools and the growth of international consortia committed to data sharing. The resulting large-scale, unbiased genetic studies have begun to yield new biological insights and with them the hope that a half century of stasis in psychiatric therapeutics will come to an end. Yet a sobering picture is coming into view; it reveals daunting genetic and phenotypic complexity portending enormous challenges for neurobiology. Successful exploitation of results from genetics will require eschewal of long-successful reductionist approaches to investigation of gene function, a commitment to supplanting much research now conducted in model organisms with human biology, and development of new experimental systems and computational models to analyse polygenic causal influences. In short, psychiatric neuroscience must develop a new scientific map to guide investigation through a polygenic terra incognita . This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Of mice and mental health: facilitating dialogue between basic and clinical neuroscientists’.

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