Amy H Herring CV

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · August 2024 BackgroundCertain associations observed in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (NBDPS) contrasted with other research or were from areas with mixed findings, including no decrease in odds of spina bifida with periconceptional folic acid su ... Full text Cite

Power Analysis of Exposure Mixture Studies via Monte Carlo Simulations.

Journal Article Statistics in biosciences · July 2024 Estimating sample size and statistical power is an essential part of a good epidemiological study design. Closed-form formulas exist for simple hypothesis tests but not for advanced statistical methods designed for exposure mixture studies. Estimating powe ... Full text Cite

Perception and reality: The mismatch between absolute and relative physical activity intensity during pregnancy and postpartum in United States women.

Journal Article Preventive medicine · May 2024 ObjectiveTo explore whether a mismatch between absolute physical activity intensity (PAI) and relative self-reported PAI exists during pregnancy and postpartum.MethodsWomen from the PIN3/Postpartum study completed physical activity questi ... Full text Cite

SPATIAL PREDICTIONS ON PHYSICALLY CONSTRAINED DOMAINS: APPLICATIONS TO ARCTIC SEA SALINITY DATA

Journal Article Annals of Applied Statistics · January 1, 2024 In this paper we predict sea surface salinity (SSS) in the Arctic Ocean based on satellite measurements. SSS is a crucial indicator for ongoing changes in the Arctic Ocean and can offer important insights about climate change. We particularly focus on area ... Full text Cite

Association of educational attainment with cancer mortality in a national cohort study of black and white adults: A mediation analysis.

Journal Article SSM - population health · December 2023 BackgroundLow educational attainment is associated with excess cancer mortality. However, the mechanisms driving this association remain unknown.MethodsUsing data from the REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) ... Full text Cite

PNAS establishes a Statistical Review Committee.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · November 2023 Full text Cite

A generalized Bayes framework for probabilistic clustering

Journal Article Biometrika · September 1, 2023 Featured Publication Loss-based clustering methods, such as k-means clustering and its variants, are standard tools for finding groups in data. However, the lack of quantification of uncertainty in the estimated clusters is a disadvantage. Model-based clustering based on mixtu ... Full text Cite

The association of prenatal phthalates, organophosphorous pesticides, and organophosphate esters with early child language ability in Norway.

Journal Article Environmental research · May 2023 BackgroundPrenatal exposure to phthalates, organophosphate esters, and organophosphorous pesticides have been associated with neurodevelopmental deficits including language ability, however, few studies consider the effect of exposure mixtures and ... Full text Cite

Bayesian matrix completion for hypothesis testing.

Journal Article Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series C, Applied statistics · May 2023 Featured Publication We aim to infer bioactivity of each chemical by assay endpoint combination, addressing sparsity of toxicology data. We propose a Bayesian hierarchical framework which borrows information across different chemicals and assay endpoints, facilitates out-of-sa ... Full text Cite

Gestational thyroid hormone concentrations and risk of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · March 2023 BackgroundMaternal thyroid function plays an important role in foetal brain development; however, little consensus exists regarding the relationship between normal variability in thyroid hormones and common neurodevelopmental disorders, such as at ... Full text Cite

Absolute Versus Relative Physical Activity Intensity During Pregnancy And Postpartum in US Women

Conference MEDICINE & SCIENCE IN SPORTS & EXERCISE · 2023 Cite

Derivation of maternal dietary patterns accounting for regional heterogeneity

Journal Article Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series C: Applied Statistics · November 1, 2022 Featured Publication Latent class models are often used to characterise dietary patterns. Yet, when subtle variations exist across different sub-populations, overall population patterns can be masked and affect statistical inference on health outcomes. We address this concern ... Full text Cite

Prenatal organophosphorus pesticide exposure and executive function in preschool-aged children in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).

Journal Article Environmental research · September 2022 IntroductionPrenatal exposure to organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) has been associated with neurodevelopmental deficits in children, however evidence linking OPPs with specific cognitive mechanisms, such as executive function (EF), is limited. Full text Cite

Prenatal Exposure to Organophosphorus Pesticides and Preschool ADHD in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study.

Journal Article International journal of environmental research and public health · July 2022 Prenatal organophosphorus pesticide (OPP) exposure has been associated with child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in agricultural communities and those that are exposed to residentially applied insecticides. To examine this association in p ... Full text Cite

Maternal Physical Activity at Term and Spontaneous Labor: A Case-Crossover Study.

Journal Article Journal of physical activity & health · February 2022 BackgroundThis study assessed associations between antenatal physical activity and the onset of spontaneous labor (SL).MethodsData were taken from 541 participants in the third pregnancy, infection, and nutrition study who had no contrain ... Full text Cite

Socioeconomic gradients in the Westernization of diet in China over 20 years.

Journal Article SSM - population health · December 2021 IntroductionIn low-middle income countries, urbanization leads to changes from traditional to Western diet, which are often accompanied by reductions in cardiometabolic health. Whether socioeconomic status buffers these urbanization-related diet c ... Full text Cite

PERTURBED FACTOR ANALYSIS: ACCOUNTING FOR GROUP DIFFERENCES IN EXPOSURE PROFILES.

Journal Article The annals of applied statistics · September 2021 Featured Publication In this article we investigate group differences in phthalate exposure profiles using NHANES data. Phthalates are a family of industrial chemicals used in plastics and as solvents. There is increasing evidence of adverse health effects of exposure to phtha ... Full text Cite

BAYESIAN JOINT MODELING OF CHEMICAL STRUCTURE AND DOSE RESPONSE CURVES.

Journal Article The annals of applied statistics · September 2021 Featured Publication Today there are approximately 85,000 chemicals regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act, with around 2,000 new chemicals introduced each year. It is impossible to screen all of these chemicals for potential toxic effects, either via full organism < ... Full text Cite

Gestational Phthalate Exposure and Preschool Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Norway.

Journal Article Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · August 2021 Prenatal phthalate exposure has been linked to altered neurobehavioral development in both animal models and epidemiologic studies, but whether or not these associations translate to increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders is unclear. We used a nest ... Full text Cite

Bayesian hierarchical factor regression models to infer cause of death from verbal autopsy data.

Journal Article J R Stat Soc Ser C Appl Stat · June 2021 Featured Publication In low-resource settings where vital registration of death is not routine it is often of critical interest to determine and study the cause of death (COD) for individuals and the cause-specific mortality fraction (CSMF) for populations. Post-mortem autopsi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Bias analyses to investigate the impact of differential participation: Application to a birth defects case-control study.

Power Analysis of Exposure Mixture Studies via Monte Carlo Simulations.

Perception and reality: The mismatch between absolute and relative physical activity intensity during pregnancy and postpartum in United States women.

SPATIAL PREDICTIONS ON PHYSICALLY CONSTRAINED DOMAINS: APPLICATIONS TO ARCTIC SEA SALINITY DATA

Association of educational attainment with cancer mortality in a national cohort study of black and white adults: A mediation analysis.

PNAS establishes a Statistical Review Committee.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · November 2023 Full text Cite

A generalized Bayes framework for probabilistic clustering

The association of prenatal phthalates, organophosphorous pesticides, and organophosphate esters with early child language ability in Norway.

Bayesian matrix completion for hypothesis testing.

Gestational thyroid hormone concentrations and risk of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study.

Absolute Versus Relative Physical Activity Intensity During Pregnancy And Postpartum in US Women

Conference MEDICINE & SCIENCE IN SPORTS & EXERCISE · 2023 Cite

Derivation of maternal dietary patterns accounting for regional heterogeneity

Prenatal organophosphorus pesticide exposure and executive function in preschool-aged children in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).

Prenatal Exposure to Organophosphorus Pesticides and Preschool ADHD in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study.

Maternal Physical Activity at Term and Spontaneous Labor: A Case-Crossover Study.

Socioeconomic gradients in the Westernization of diet in China over 20 years.

PERTURBED FACTOR ANALYSIS: ACCOUNTING FOR GROUP DIFFERENCES IN EXPOSURE PROFILES.

BAYESIAN JOINT MODELING OF CHEMICAL STRUCTURE AND DOSE RESPONSE CURVES.

Gestational Phthalate Exposure and Preschool Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Norway.

Bayesian hierarchical factor regression models to infer cause of death from verbal autopsy data.

Prenatal phthalate exposures and executive function in preschool children.

Journal Article Environment international · April 2021 BackgroundPrenatal phthalate exposure has been linked with altered neurodevelopment, including externalizing behaviors and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the implicated metabolite, neurobehavioral endpoint, and child sex ... Full text Cite

Centered Partition Processes: Informative Priors for Clustering (with Discussion).

Journal Article Bayesian analysis · March 2021 Featured Publication There is a very rich literature proposing Bayesian approaches for clustering starting with a prior probability distribution on partitions. Most approaches assume exchangeability, leading to simple representations in terms of Exchangeable Partition Probabil ... Full text Cite

Rejoinder

Journal Article BAYESIAN ANALYSIS · 2021 Featured Publication Cite

Physical Activity During Pregnancy: Guidelines Versus Adherence

Conference MEDICINE AND SCIENCE IN SPORTS AND EXERCISE · 2021 Cite

Empirically Derived Dietary Patterns Using Robust Profile Clustering in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos.

Journal Article The Journal of nutrition · October 2020 Featured Publication BackgroundLatent class models (LCMs) have been used in exploring dietary behaviors over a wide set of foods and beverages in a given population, but are prone to overgeneralize these habits in the presence of variation by subpopulations.Object ... Full text Cite

A generalized Bayes framework for probabilistic clustering

Journal Article · June 9, 2020 Featured Publication Loss-based clustering methods, such as k-means and its variants, are standard tools for finding groups in data. However, the lack of quantification of uncertainty in the estimated clusters is a disadvantage. Model-based clustering based on mixture models p ... Link to item Cite

Robust Clustering with Subpopulation-specific Deviations.

Journal Article Journal of the American Statistical Association · January 2020 Featured Publication The National Birth Defects Prevention Study (NBDPS) is a case-control study of birth defects conducted across 10 U.S. states. Researchers are interested in characterizing the etiologic role of maternal diet, collected using a food frequency questionnaire. ... Full text Cite

Non-parametric Bayes models for mixed scale longitudinal surveys

Journal Article Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series C: Applied Statistics · August 1, 2019 Featured Publication Modelling and computation for multivariate longitudinal surveys have proven challenging, particularly when data are not all continuous and Gaussian but contain discrete measurements. In many social science surveys, study participants are selected via compl ... Full text Cite

Hot Deck Multiple Imputation for Handling Missing Accelerometer Data.

Journal Article Statistics in biosciences · July 2019 Missing data due to non-wear are common in accelerometer studies measuring physical activity and sedentary behavior. Accelerometer output are high-dimensional time-series data that are episodic and often highly skewed, presenting unique challenges for hand ... Full text Cite

Maternal one carbon metabolism and arsenic methylation in a pregnancy cohort in Mexico.

Journal Article Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · September 2018 The prenatal period represents a critical window of susceptibility to inorganic arsenic (iAs) exposure from contaminated drinking water. Ingested iAs undergoes hepatic methylation generating mono and di-methyl arsenicals (MMAs and DMAs, respectively), a pr ... Full text Cite

Early Life Characteristics and Neurodevelopmental Phenotypes in the Mount Sinai Children's Environmental Health Center.

Journal Article Child psychiatry and human development · August 2018 Neurodevelopmental outcomes including behavior, executive functioning, and IQ exhibit complex correlational structures, although they are often treated as independent in etiologic studies. We performed a principal components analysis of the behavioral asse ... Full text Cite

Prenatal exposure to organophosphates and associations with birthweight and gestational length.

Journal Article Environment international · July 2018 Organophosphate esters (OPEs) are often used as flame retardants and plasticizers. Animal data suggest exposure to OPEs could impact children's growth and development, yet impacts on human birth outcomes are understudied. We evaluate impacts of OPE exposur ... Full text Cite

Marginalized zero-inflated Poisson models with missing covariates.

Journal Article Biometrical journal. Biometrische Zeitschrift · July 2018 Unlike zero-inflated Poisson regression, marginalized zero-inflated Poisson (MZIP) models for counts with excess zeros provide estimates with direct interpretations for the overall effects of covariates on the marginal mean. In the presence of missing cova ... Full text Cite

Reliability and One-Year Stability of the PIN3 Neighborhood Environmental Audit in Urban and Rural Neighborhoods.

Journal Article Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · June 2018 Reliable and stable environmental audit instruments are needed to successfully identify the physical and social attributes that may influence physical activity. This study described the reliability and stability of the PIN3 environmental audit instrument i ... Full text Cite

Prenatal Phthalates, Maternal Thyroid Function, and Risk of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · May 2018 BackgroundThere is growing concern that phthalate exposures may have an impact on child neurodevelopment. Prenatal exposure to phthalates has been linked with externalizing behaviors and executive functioning defects suggestive of an attention-def ... Full text Cite

Major depression, antidepressant use, and male and female fertility.

Journal Article Fertility and sterility · May 2018 ObjectiveTo determine if maternal major depression (MD), antidepressant use, or paternal MD are associated with pregnancy outcomes after non-IVF fertility treatments.DesignCohort study.SettingClinics.Patient(s)Participan ... Full text Cite

Associations between Personal Care Product Use Patterns and Breast Cancer Risk among White and Black Women in the Sister Study.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · February 2018 BackgroundMany personal care products include chemicals that might act as endocrine disruptors and thus increase the risk of breast cancer.ObjectiveWe examined the association between usage patterns of beauty, hair, and skin-related perso ... Full text Cite

Bayesian local extremum splines

Journal Article Biometrika · December 1, 2017 We consider shape-restricted nonparametric regression on a closed set $$\mathcal{X} \subset \mathbb{R},$$ where it is reasonable to assume that the function has no more than $$H$$ local extrema interior to $$\mathcal{X}$$. Following a Bayesian approach we ... Full text Link to item Cite

Bayesian local extremum splines

Journal Article Biometrika · December 1, 2017 Featured Publication Cite

Association Between Biomarkers of Ovarian Reserve and Infertility Among Older Women of Reproductive Age

Journal Article Journal of the American Medical Association · October 10, 2017 Featured Publication Importance Despite lack of evidence of their utility, biomarkers of ovarian reserve are being promoted as potential markers of reproductive potential. Objective To determine the associations between biomarkers of ovarian reserve and reproductive poten ... Full text Link to item Cite

Flavored little cigar smoke induces cytotoxicity and apoptosis in airway epithelia.

Journal Article Cell death discovery · January 2017 Addition of flavors reduces the harsh taste of tobacco, facilitating the initiation and maintenance of addiction among youths. Flavored cigarettes (except menthol) are now banned. However, the legislation on little cigars remains unclear and flavored littl ... Full text Cite

Estimating inverse-probability weights for longitudinal data with dropout or truncation: The xtrccipw command.

Journal Article The Stata journal · January 2017 Individuals may drop out of a longitudinal study, rendering their outcomes unobserved but still well defined. However, they may also undergo truncation (for example, death), beyond which their outcomes are no longer meaningful. Kurland and Heagerty (2005, ... Full text Cite

Associations of Accelerometry-Assessed and Self-Reported Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior With All-Cause and Cardiovascular Mortality Among US Adults.

Journal Article American journal of epidemiology · November 2016 The US physical activity (PA) recommendations were based primarily on studies in which self-reported data were used. Studies that include accelerometer-assessed PA and sedentary behavior can contribute to these recommendations. In the present study, we exp ... Full text Cite

Lactational Exposure to Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers and Its Relation to Early Childhood Anthropometric Measurements.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · October 2016 Featured Publication BackgroundPolybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are ubiquitous environmental contaminants that may influence growth and development.ObjectiveWe investigated the association between exposure to PBDEs via breast milk and anthropometric mea ... Full text Cite

Bayesian multinomial probit modeling of daily windows of susceptibility for maternal PM2.5 exposure and congenital heart defects.

Journal Article Statistics in medicine · July 2016 Epidemiologic studies suggest that maternal ambient air pollution exposure during critical periods of pregnancy is associated with adverse effects on fetal development. In this work, we introduce new methodology for identifying critical periods of developm ... Full text Cite

Nonparametric Bayes modeling with sample survey weights.

Journal Article Statistics & probability letters · June 2016 Featured Publication In population studies, it is standard to sample data via designs in which the population is divided into strata, with the different strata assigned different probabilities of inclusion. Although there have been some proposals for including sample survey we ... Full text Cite

Air Pollution and Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Nested Case-Control Study among Members of a Northern California Health Plan.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · June 2016 BackgroundEcologic analyses, case-case comparisons, and animal experiments suggest positive associations between air pollution and tuberculosis.ObjectivesWe evaluated this hypothesis in a large sample, which yielded results that are appli ... Full text Cite

Prenatal Phthalate Exposures and Body Mass Index Among 4- to 7-Year-old Children: A Pooled Analysis.

Journal Article Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · May 2016 Featured Publication BackgroundPhthalates are hypothesized to cause obesity, but few studies have assessed whether prenatal phthalate exposures are related to childhood body mass index (BMI).MethodsWe included 707 children from three prospective cohort studie ... Full text Cite

Spatiotemporal modeling of preterm birth

Chapter · April 6, 2016 Cite

Prenatal Phthalate Exposures and Childhood Fat Mass in a New York City Cohort.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · April 2016 Featured Publication BackgroundExperimental animal studies and limited epidemiologic evidence suggest that prenatal exposure to phthalates may be obesogenic, with potential sex-specific effects of phthalates having anti-androgenic activity.ObjectivesWe aimed ... Full text Cite

Nonparametric Bayes modeling for case control studies with many predictors.

Journal Article Biometrics · March 2016 Featured Publication It is common in biomedical research to run case-control studies involving high-dimensional predictors, with the main goal being detection of the sparse subset of predictors having a significant association with disease. Usual analyses rely on independent s ... Full text Cite

Obstetric Ultrasound Efficiency and Accuracy Using a Protocol-Based Examination.

Journal Article Journal of ultrasound in medicine : official journal of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine · March 2016 ObjectivesObstetric ultrasound imaging requires the acquisition of a standard set of maternal and fetal images. Our objective was to evaluate the impact of implementation of a protocol-based ultrasound examination on the duration of ultrasound exa ... Full text Cite

Spatially Modelling the Association Between Access to Recreational Facilities and Exercise: The 'Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis'.

Journal Article J R Stat Soc Ser A Stat Soc · January 2016 Featured Publication Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between the built environment and physical activity. However these studies assume that these relationships are invariant over space. In this study, we introduce a novel method to analyze the association b ... Full text Link to item Cite

Vehicular Traffic-Related Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Exposure and Breast Cancer Incidence: The Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project (LIBCSP).

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · January 2016 BackgroundPolycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are widespread environmental pollutants, known human lung carcinogens, and potent mammary carcinogens in laboratory animals. However, the association between PAHs and breast cancer in women is uncl ... Full text Cite

A Marginalized Zero-inflated Poisson Regression Model with Random Effects.

Journal Article Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series C, Applied statistics · November 2015 Public health research often concerns relationships between exposures and correlated count outcomes. When counts exhibit more zeros than expected under Poisson sampling, the zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) model with random effects may be used. However, the la ... Full text Cite

Multilevel quantile function modeling with application to birth outcomes.

Journal Article Biometrics · June 2015 Infants born preterm or small for gestational age have elevated rates of morbidity and mortality. Using birth certificate records in Texas from 2002 to 2004 and Environmental Protection Agency air pollution estimates, we relate the quantile functions of bi ... Full text Cite

Cigarette smoking and pulmonary tuberculosis in northern California.

Journal Article Journal of epidemiology and community health · June 2015 BackgroundA positive association between smoking and increased risk of tuberculosis disease is well documented for populations outside the USA. However, it is unclear whether smoking increases risk of tuberculosis in the USA, where both smoking pr ... Full text Cite

Maternal arsenic exposure, arsenic methylation efficiency, and birth outcomes in the Biomarkers of Exposure to ARsenic (BEAR) pregnancy cohort in Mexico.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · February 2015 BackgroundExposure to inorganic arsenic (iAs) from drinking water is a global public health problem, yet much remains unknown about the extent of exposure in susceptible populations.ObjectivesWe aimed to establish the Biomarkers of Exposu ... Full text Cite

Bayesian factorizations of big sparse tensors.

Journal Article Journal of the American Statistical Association · January 2015 It has become routine to collect data that are structured as multiway arrays (tensors). There is an enormous literature on low rank and sparse matrix factorizations, but limited consideration of extensions to the tensor case in statistics. The most common ... Full text Cite

Maternal arsenic exposure, arsenic methylation efficiency, and birth outcomes in the biomarkers of exposure to ARsenic (BEAR) pregnancy cohort in Mexico

Journal Article Environmental Health Perspectives · January 1, 2015 Background: Exposure to inorganic arsenic (iAs) from drinking water is a global public health problem, yet much remains unknown about the extent of exposure in susceptible populations. oBjectives: We aimed to establish the Biomarkers of Exposure to ARsenic ... Full text Cite

A marginalized zero-inflated Poisson regression model with overall exposure effects.

Journal Article Statistics in medicine · December 2014 The zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) regression model is often employed in public health research to examine the relationships between exposures of interest and a count outcome exhibiting many zeros, in excess of the amount expected under sampling from a Poisso ... Full text Cite

Maternal exposure to criteria air pollutants and congenital heart defects in offspring: results from the national birth defects prevention study.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · August 2014 BackgroundEpidemiologic literature suggests that exposure to air pollutants is associated with fetal development.ObjectivesWe investigated maternal exposures to air pollutants during weeks 2-8 of pregnancy and their associations with cong ... Full text Cite

Mechanistic Hierarchical Gaussian Processes.

Journal Article Journal of the American Statistical Association · July 2014 The statistics literature on functional data analysis focuses primarily on flexible black-box approaches, which are designed to allow individual curves to have essentially any shape while characterizing variability. Such methods typically cannot incorporat ... Full text Cite

Replication of breast cancer susceptibility loci in whites and African Americans using a Bayesian approach.

Journal Article American journal of epidemiology · February 2014 Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and candidate gene analyses have led to the discovery of several dozen genetic polymorphisms associated with breast cancer susceptibility, many of which are considered well-established risk factors for the disease. De ... Full text Cite

Like a virgin (mother): Analysis of data from a longitudinal, US population representative sample survey

Journal Article BMJ (Online) · December 17, 2013 Objective To estimate the incidence of self report of pregnancy without sexual intercourse (virgin pregnancy) and factors related to such reporting, in a population representative group of US adolescents and young adults. Design Longitudinal, population re ... Full text Cite

Maternal dietary patterns are associated with risk of neural tube and congenital heart defects.

Journal Article American journal of epidemiology · June 2013 Studying empirically derived dietary patterns is useful in understanding dietary practice. We classified women by their dietary patterns using latent class analysis of 66 foods and studied the association of these patterns with neural tube defects (NTDs) a ... Full text Cite

Risk of substance abuse and dependence among young adult sexual minority groups using a multidimensional measure of sexual orientation.

Journal Article Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974) · May 2013 ObjectiveWe examined associations between two definitions of sexual minority status (SMS) and substance abuse and/or dependence among young adults in a national population.MethodsA total of 14,152 respondents (7,529 women and 6,623 men) i ... Full text Cite

Cardiovascular outcomes and the physical and chemical properties of metal ions found in particulate matter air pollution: a QICAR study.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · May 2013 BackgroundThis paper presents an application of quantitative ion character-activity relationships (QICAR) to estimate associations of human cardiovascular (CV) diseases (CVDs) with a set of metal ion properties commonly observed in ambient air pol ... Full text Cite

Urinary follicle-stimulating hormone as a measure of natural fertility in a community cohort.

Journal Article Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) · May 2013 High serum follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels have been associated with diminished ovarian reserve; however, the association between high urinary FSH and reduced natural fertility has yet to be established. We sought to characterize the relationship ... Full text Cite

Latent transition models to study women's changing of dietary patterns from pregnancy to 1 year postpartum.

Journal Article American journal of epidemiology · April 2013 Latent class models are useful for classifying subjects by dietary patterns. Our goals were to use latent transition models to identify dietary patterns during pregnancy and postpartum, to estimate the prevalence of these dietary patterns, and to model tra ... Full text Cite

Inter-rater agreement for diagnoses of epilepsy in pregnant women.

Journal Article Epilepsy & behavior : E&B · April 2013 We report on inter-rater agreement in assessing the types of seizures exhibited by one hundred mothers ascertained in a study of the teratogenicity of maternal epilepsy and antiepileptic drugs. A summary of each woman's medical record and a one-page report ... Full text Cite

Risk factors for invasive candidiasis in infants >1500 g birth weight.

Journal Article Pediatr Infect Dis J · March 2013 BACKGROUND: We describe the incidence, risk factors and outcomes of invasive candidiasis in infants >1500 g birth weight. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of infants >1500 g birth weight discharged from 305 neonatal intensive care units i ... Full text Link to item Cite

Physical activity during pregnancy and postpartum depressive symptoms.

Journal Article Midwifery · February 2013 Objectiveto examine the associations between total and domain-specific moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during pregnancy and postpartum depressive symptoms.Designa prospective cohort study.Participantsdata were obtai ... Full text Cite

The association between sequences of sexual initiation and the likelihood of teenage pregnancy.

Journal Article The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine · February 2013 PurposeFew studies have examined the health and developmental consequences, including unintended pregnancy, of different sexual behavior initiation sequences. Some work suggests that engaging in oral-genital sex first may slow the transition to co ... Full text Cite

Infant BMI trajectories are associated with young adult body composition.

Journal Article Journal of developmental origins of health and disease · February 2013 The dynamic aspect of early life growth is not fully captured by typical analyses, which focus on one specific time period. To better understand how infant and young child growth relate to the development of adult body composition, the authors characterize ... Full text Cite

Discordant risk: overweight and cardiometabolic risk in Chinese adults.

Journal Article Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · January 2013 ObjectiveRecent US work identified "metabolically healthy overweight" and "metabolically at risk normal weight" individuals. Less is known for modernizing countries with recent increased obesity.Design and methodsFasting blood samples, an ... Full text Cite

Bayesian Spatial-temporal Model for Cardiac Congenital Anomalies and Ambient Air Pollution Risk Assessment.

Journal Article Environmetrics · December 2012 We introduce a Bayesian spatial-temporal hierarchical multivariate probit regression model that identifies weeks during the first trimester of pregnancy which are impactful in terms of cardiac congenital anomaly development. The model is able to consider m ... Full text Cite

Spatial-temporal modeling of the association between air pollution exposure and preterm birth: identifying critical windows of exposure.

Journal Article Biometrics · December 2012 Exposure to high levels of air pollution during the pregnancy is associated with increased probability of preterm birth (PTB), a major cause of infant morbidity and mortality. New statistical methodology is required to specifically determine when a particu ... Full text Cite

Associations between patterns of emerging sexual behavior and young adult reproductive health.

Journal Article Perspectives on sexual and reproductive health · December 2012 ContextIdentifying young adult outcomes associated with adolescent sexual behavior, including patterns of first oral, vaginal and anal sex, is critical to promoting healthy sexual development.MethodsAssociations between patterns of emergi ... Full text Cite

Multilevel examination of diabetes in modernising China: what elements of urbanisation are most associated with diabetes?

Journal Article Diabetologia · December 2012 Aims/hypothesisThe purpose of this study was to examine the association between urbanisation-related factors and diabetes prevalence in China.MethodsAnthropometry, fasting blood glucose (FBG) and community-level data were collected for 7, ... Full text Cite

In reply

Journal Article Obstetrics and Gynecology · November 1, 2012 Full text Cite

Pregravid body mass index, psychological factors during pregnancy and breastfeeding duration: is there a link?

Journal Article Maternal & child nutrition · October 2012 Breastfeeding rates in the United States are low, and one possible reason may be the high prevalence of overweight/obesity among women of childbearing age. This analysis examined the association between pregravid body mass index and breastfeeding duration, ... Full text Cite

Breastfeeding and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid intake in the first 4 post-natal months and infant cognitive development: an observational study.

Journal Article Maternal & child nutrition · October 2012 The aim of this study was to examine infant feeding and the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LCPUFA) concentration of breast milk and formulas in relation to infant development. The prospective Pregnancy, Infection and Nutrition Study (n=358) collect ... Full text Cite

Plasmodium falciparum parasitaemia in the first half of pregnancy, uterine and umbilical artery blood flow, and foetal growth: a longitudinal Doppler ultrasound study.

Journal Article Malaria journal · September 2012 BackgroundDuring early pregnancy, the placenta develops to meet the metabolic demands of the foetus. The objective of this analysis was to examine the effect of malaria parasitaemia prior to 20 weeks' gestation on subsequent changes in uterine and ... Full text Cite

Pregravid body mass index is associated with early introduction of complementary foods.

Journal Article Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics · September 2012 ObjectiveTo determine whether women who entered pregnancy overweight or obese were less likely to follow American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for introducing complementary foods to infants after 4 months of age. In addition, we explored wheth ... Full text Cite

Consumer product exposures associated with urinary phthalate levels in pregnant women.

Journal Article Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · September 2012 Human phthalate exposure is ubiquitous, but little is known regarding predictors of urinary phthalate levels. To explore this, 50 pregnant women aged 18-38 years completed two questionnaires on potential phthalate exposures and provided a first morning voi ... Full text Cite

Behavioral influences on preterm birth: integrated analysis of the pregnancy, infection, and nutrition study.

Journal Article Maternal and child health journal · August 2012 Most previous studies of preterm birth have considered risk factors in isolation rather than examining the collective impact of multiple candidate determinants. In order to examine the combined impact of a set of behavioral risk factors on the risk of pret ... Full text Cite

Paternal occupation and birth defects: findings from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study.

Journal Article Occupational and environmental medicine · August 2012 ObjectivesSeveral epidemiological studies have suggested that certain paternal occupations may be associated with an increased prevalence of birth defects in offspring. Using data from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study, the authors inves ... Full text Cite

A prospective study of the association between vigorous physical activity during pregnancy and length of gestation and birthweight.

Journal Article Maternal and child health journal · July 2012 UnlabelledCurrent US pregnancy-related physical activity recommendations do not provide specific guidance for vigorous intensity activity. We examined the associations between vigorous physical activity during pregnancy and length of gestation and ... Full text Cite

Effect of vaginal lubricants on natural fertility.

Journal Article Obstetrics and gynecology · July 2012 ObjectiveOver-the-counter vaginal lubricants have been shown to negatively affect in vitro sperm motility. The objective of this study was to estimate the effect of vaginal lubricant use during procreative intercourse on natural fertility.Meth ... Full text Cite

Depressive symptoms during pregnancy and the concentration of fatty acids in breast milk.

Journal Article Journal of human lactation : official journal of International Lactation Consultant Association · May 2012 The aim of the present study was to examine the association between depressive symptoms in pregnancy and the concentration of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs) in breast milk. Women (n = 287) enrolled in the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutriti ... Full text Cite

Beyond age at first sex: patterns of emerging sexual behavior in adolescence and young adulthood.

Journal Article The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine · May 2012 PurposeAlthough the emergence of sexual expression during adolescence and early adulthood is nearly universal, little is known about patterns of initiation.MethodsWe used latent class analysis to group 12,194 respondents from waves I and ... Full text Cite

Gestational weight gain and predicted changes in offspring anthropometrics between early infancy and 3 years.

Journal Article Pediatric obesity · April 2012 ObjectiveTo determine how gestational weight gain (GWG), categorized using the 2009 Institute of Medicine recommendations, relates to changes in offspring weight-for-age (WAZ), length-for-age (LAZ) and weight-for-length z-scores (WLZ) between earl ... Full text Cite

Correlates of physical activity at two time points during pregnancy.

Journal Article Journal of physical activity & health · March 2012 BackgroundCorrelates of prenatal physical activity can inform interventions, but are not well-understood.MethodsParticipants in the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition 3 Study were recruited before 20 weeks gestation. Women self-reported ... Full text Cite

Self-report versus ultrasound measurement of uterine fibroid status.

Journal Article Journal of women's health (2002) · March 2012 BackgroundMuch of the epidemiologic research on risk factors for fibroids, the leading indication for hysterectomy, relies on self-reported outcome. Self-report is subject to misclassification because many women with fibroids are undiagnosed. The ... Full text Cite

Towards prenatal biomonitoring in North Carolina: assessing arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead levels in pregnant women.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2012 Exposure to toxic metals during the prenatal period carries the potential for adverse developmental effects to the fetus, yet such exposure remains largely unmonitored in the United States. The aim of this study was to assess maternal exposure to four toxi ... Full text Cite

Self-Reported and objectively measured physical activity among a cohort of postpartum women: the PIN Postpartum Study.

Journal Article Journal of physical activity & health · January 2012 BackgroundFew studies measure physical activity objectively or at multiple time points during postpartum. We describe physical activity at 3- and 12-months postpartum among a cohort of women using both self-reported and objective measures.Meth ... Full text Cite

Detecting disease outbreaks using local spatiotemporal methods.

Journal Article Biometrics · December 2011 A real-time surveillance method is developed with emphasis on rapid and accurate detection of emerging outbreaks. We develop a model with relatively weak assumptions regarding the latent processes generating the observed data, ensuring a robust prediction ... Full text Cite

Maternal obesity, psychological factors, and breastfeeding initiation.

Journal Article Breastfeeding medicine : the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine · December 2011 ObjectiveMaternal obesity has been associated with lower initiation of breastfeeding, but reasons for why this association exists have not been well studied. In this study, we examined associations among prepregnancy obesity, psychological factors ... Full text Cite

Joint effects of alcohol consumption and polymorphisms in alcohol and oxidative stress metabolism genes on risk of head and neck cancer.

Journal Article Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · November 2011 BackgroundSingle-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in alcohol metabolism genes are associated with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) and may influence cancer risk in conjunction with alcohol. Genetic variation in the oxidative stre ... Full text Cite

The effect of water disinfection by-products on pregnancy outcomes in two southeastern US communities.

Journal Article Journal of occupational and environmental medicine · October 2011 ObjectiveTo determine if exposure to disinfection by-products (DBPs) during gestation increases the risk of adverse birth outcomes, specifically term small for gestational age (SGA) birth, preterm birth (PTB), and very PTB (<32 weeks' gestation).< ... Full text Cite

Placenta previa in the second trimester: sonographic and clinical factors associated with its resolution.

Journal Article American journal of perinatology · October 2011 We identify characteristics that predict resolution of placenta previa and develop a clinical model for likelihood of resolution. We conducted a retrospective study of 366 singleton pregnancies complicated by placenta previa diagnosed with resolution of th ... Full text Cite

Improved premenstrual syndrome symptoms after NovaSure endometrial ablation.

Journal Article Journal of minimally invasive gynecology · September 2011 Study objectiveTo evaluate the change in premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptoms in women with heavy periods who underwent endometrial ablation.DesignThe study used a prospective, single-arm cohort of adult women who were to undergo NovaSure ... Full text Cite

Bayesian variable selection for latent class models.

Journal Article Biometrics · September 2011 In this article, we develop a latent class model with class probabilities that depend on subject-specific covariates. One of our major goals is to identify important predictors of latent classes. We consider methodology that allows estimation of latent cla ... Full text Cite

Anesthesia and analgesia-related preferences and outcomes of women who have birth plans.

Journal Article Journal of midwifery & women's health · July 2011 IntroductionThis study described anesthesia and analgesia-related preferences and outcomes of women who used a birth plan for labor and birth.MethodsA prospective cohort study was conducted (N = 63). Data were abstracted from medical reco ... Full text Cite

Assessing variance components in multilevel linear models using approximate Bayes factors: A case study of ethnic disparities in birthweight.

Journal Article Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, (Statistics in Society) · July 2011 Racial/ethnic disparities in birthweight are a large source of differential morbidity and mortality worldwide and have remained largely unexplained in epidemiologic models. We assess the impact of maternal ancestry and census tract residence on infant birt ... Full text Cite

Associations between physical activity and postpartum depressive symptoms.

Journal Article Journal of women's health (2002) · July 2011 BackgroundPostpartum women are at increased risk for developing depression, which can contribute to the ill health of the mother and her family. Previous research indicates that mothers who are physically active during leisure experience lower lev ... Full text Cite

A prospective study of maternal anxiety, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms in relation to infant cognitive development.

Journal Article Early human development · May 2011 AimOur objective was to examine the associations between maternal psychological health (trait anxiety, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms) during pregnancy or postpartum and infant visual, language, motor, and overall cognitive development. ... Full text Cite

Effect of body image on pregnancy weight gain.

Journal Article Maternal and child health journal · April 2011 The majority of women gain more weight during pregnancy than what is recommended. Since gestational weight gain is related to short and long-term maternal health outcomes, it is important to identify women at greater risk of not adhering to guidelines. The ... Full text Cite

Physical activity and depressive symptoms among pregnant women: the PIN3 study.

Journal Article Archives of women's mental health · April 2011 Prenatal depression confers health risks for both mother and family. Physical activity may promote better mental health; however, few studies have examined the influence of physical activity on prenatal depression. Data from 1,220 women enrolled in the thi ... Full text Cite

Antimüllerian hormone as a predictor of natural fecundability in women aged 30-42 years.

Journal Article Obstetrics and gynecology · April 2011 ObjectiveTo generate estimates of the association between markers of ovarian aging and natural fertility in a community sample at risk for ovarian aging.MethodsWomen aged 30-44 years with no history of infertility who had been trying to c ... Full text Cite

Predictors of measurement error in energy intake during pregnancy.

Journal Article American journal of epidemiology · March 2011 Nutrition plays a critical role in maternal and fetal health; however, research on error in the measurement of energy intake during pregnancy is limited. The authors analyzed data on 998 women living in central North Carolina with singleton pregnancies dur ... Full text Cite

Effectiveness of state and federal government agreements with major credit card and shipping companies to block illegal Internet cigarette sales.

Journal Article PloS one · February 2011 UnlabelledMost Internet vendors offer tax-free cigarettes making them cheaper than those sold at stores. This undermines the impact that higher prices have upon reducing consumption. Most Internet tobacco sales have violated taxation and youth acc ... Full text Cite

Effects of pre-pregnancy body mass index and gestational weight gain on infant anthropometric outcomes.

Journal Article The Journal of pediatrics · February 2011 ObjectiveTo determine whether pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and gestational weight gain (GWG) influence infant postnatal growth.Study designParticipants were from the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition study, a prospective pregnanc ... Full text Cite

The association between maternal glucose concentration and child BMI at age 3 years.

Journal Article Diabetes care · February 2011 ObjectiveThe objective of the study was to determine the association between child BMI at age 3 years and maternal glucose concentration among women without pre-existing diabetes or a gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) diagnosis.Research desi ... Full text Cite

Gestational weight gain and birth outcome in relation to prepregnancy body mass index and ethnicity.

Journal Article Annals of epidemiology · February 2011 PurposeThe obesity epidemic raises concerns about the impact of excessive and insufficient weight gain during pregnancy.MethodsWe examined the association between gestational weight gain (GWG) and preterm birth, term small- and large-for- ... Full text Cite

Maternal influences on nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy.

Journal Article Maternal and child health journal · January 2011 Symptoms of nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy (NVP) are common among pregnant women, but whether some women are more likely than others to experience these symptoms has not been well established. We examined potential risk factors for NVP symptom seve ... Full text Cite

Antenatal magnesium sulphate may prevent cerebral palsy in preterm infants--but are we convinced? Evaluation of an apparently conclusive meta-analysis with trial sequential analysis.

Journal Article BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology · January 2011 Full text Cite

Commentary on 'Antenatal magnesium sulphate may prevent cerebral palsy in preterm infants-but are we convinced? Evaluation of an apparently conclusive meta-analysis with trial sequential analysis'

Journal Article BJOG-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNAECOLOGY · 2011 Cite

Latent class analysis is useful to classify pregnant women into dietary patterns.

Journal Article The Journal of nutrition · December 2010 Empirical dietary patterns are derived predominantly using principal components, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), or cluster analysis. Interestingly, latent variable models are less used despite their being more flexible to accommodate important characte ... Full text Cite

Severity and duration of nausea and vomiting symptoms in pregnancy and spontaneous abortion.

Journal Article Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · November 2010 BackgroundEarlier studies have shown an inverse association between the presence of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP) and spontaneous abortion (SAB), but no study to date has examined the effects of symptom duration on the risk of SAB.Met ... Full text Cite

Pregnancy-related fibroid reduction.

Journal Article Fertility and sterility · November 2010 We tested the hypothesis that the protective effect of parity on fibroids is due to direct pregnancy-related effects by following women from early pregnancy to postpartum period with ultrasound. Of 171 women with one initial fibroid, 36% had no identifiabl ... Full text Cite

Sociodemographic, perinatal, behavioral, and psychosocial predictors of weight retention at 3 and 12 months postpartum.

Journal Article Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · October 2010 Postpartum weight retention plays an important role in the pathway leading to obesity among women of childbearing age. The objective of this study was to examine predictors of moderate (1-10 pounds) and high (>10 pounds) postpartum weight retention using d ... Full text Cite

Obesity and diabetes genetic variants associated with gestational weight gain.

Journal Article American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · September 2010 ObjectiveWe sought to determine whether genetic variants associated with diabetes and obesity predict gestational weight gain.Study designA total of 960 participants in the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition cohorts were genotyped for 27 ... Full text Cite

Bayesian variable selection for multivariate spatially varying coefficient regression.

Journal Article Biometrics · September 2010 Physical activity has many well-documented health benefits for cardiovascular fitness and weight control. For pregnant women, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists currently recommends 30 minutes of moderate exercise on most, if not all, ... Full text Cite

Perceived coercion among jail diversion participants in a multisite study.

Journal Article Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.) · September 2010 ObjectiveAlthough jail diversion is considered an appropriate and humane response to the disproportionately high volume of people with mental illness who are incarcerated, little is known regarding the perceptions of jail diversion participants, t ... Full text Cite

Recurrence risk of stillbirth in the second pregnancy.

Journal Article BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology · September 2010 Full text Cite

Patterns and predictors of vaginal bleeding in the first trimester of pregnancy.

Journal Article Annals of epidemiology · July 2010 PurposeAlthough first-trimester vaginal bleeding is an alarming symptom, few studies have investigated the prevalence and predictors of early bleeding. This study characterizes first trimester bleeding, setting aside bleeding that occurs at time o ... Full text Cite

Nonparametric bayes shrinkage for assessing exposures to mixtures subject to limits of detection.

Journal Article Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · July 2010 Assessing potential associations between exposures to complex mixtures and health outcomes may be complicated by a lack of knowledge of causal components of the mixture, highly correlated mixture components, potential synergistic effects of mixture compone ... Full text Cite

Hypospadias and halogenated organic pollutant levels in maternal mid-pregnancy serum samples.

Journal Article Chemosphere · July 2010 BackgroundEnvironmental contaminants that disrupt endocrine function may contribute to hypospadias etiology.ObjectiveTo compare levels of selected halogenated organic pollutants in women delivering infants with and without hypospadias. Full text Cite

Preliminary examination of polymorphisms of GSTM1, GSTT1, and GSTZ1 in relation to semen quality.

Journal Article Mutation research · June 2010 BackgroundEnvironmental, lifestyle, and occupational exposures on semen quality have been investigated in epidemiological studies with inconsistent results. Genetic factors involved in toxicant activation and detoxification have been examined in r ... Full text Cite

Neighborhood deprivation and adverse birth outcomes among diverse ethnic groups.

Journal Article Annals of epidemiology · June 2010 PurposeLiving in a socioeconomically deprived neighborhood has been associated with an increased risk of adverse birth outcomes. However, variation in the effect of neighborhood deprivation among diverse ethnic groups has not been studied.Meth ... Full text Cite

Neighbourhood food environment and gestational diabetes in New York City.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · May 2010 The association between neighbourhood characteristics and gestational diabetes has not been examined previously. We investigated the relationship between the number of healthy food outlets (supermarkets; fruit/vegetable and natural food stores), and unheal ... Full text Cite

Lactational exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, and dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene and infant growth: an analysis of the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition Babies Study.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · May 2010 Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), 2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)-1,1,1-trichloroethane (p,p'-DDT) and 2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)-1,1-dichloroethylene (p,p'-DDE), the most stable metabolite of p,p'-DDT, are persistent organic pollutants and environmental endocrine dis ... Full text Cite

Provider advice about weight loss and physical activity in the postpartum period.

Journal Article Journal of women's health (2002) · March 2010 ObjectiveTo explore the association between healthcare provider advice about weight loss and physical activity in the postpartum period and weight retention and activity levels in women assessed at 3 months postpartum.MethodsUsing data fr ... Full text Cite

A robust method for comparing two treatments in a confirmatory clinical trial via multivariate time-to-event methods that jointly incorporate information from longitudinal and time-to-event data.

Journal Article Statistics in medicine · January 2010 We consider regulatory clinical trials that require a prespecified method for the comparison of two treatments for chronic diseases (e.g. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) in which patients suffer deterioration in a longitudinal process until death oc ... Full text Cite

Accuracy of reporting bleeding during pregnancy.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · January 2010 Vaginal bleeding during pregnancy has been considered a marker of an at-risk pregnancy, but the accuracy of reported bleeding has not been assessed. We sought to evaluate the agreement in vaginal bleeding reports based on prospective daily diary and retros ... Full text Cite

Physical activity and sleep among pregnant women.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · January 2010 Sleep disturbances are common among pregnant women and safe treatments to improve sleep are needed. Generally, physical activity improves sleep, but studies are lacking on the associations of physical activity with sleep among pregnant women. Our aim was t ... Full text Cite

A Bayesian latent variable mixture model for longitudinal fetal growth.

Journal Article Biometrics · December 2009 Fetal growth restriction is a leading cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality that could be reduced if high-risk infants are identified early in pregnancy. We propose a Bayesian model for aggregating 18 longitudinal ultrasound measurements of fetal size ... Full text Cite

Maternal ethnic ancestry and adverse perinatal outcomes in New York City.

Journal Article American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · December 2009 ObjectiveWe sought to examine the association between narrowly defined subsets of maternal ethnicity and birth outcomes.Study designWe analyzed 1995-2003 New York City birth certificates linked to hospital discharge data for 949,210 singl ... Full text Cite

Physical activity patterns during pregnancy through postpartum.

Journal Article BMC women's health · November 2009 BackgroundRealizing the importance of regular physical activity, particularly in the prevention of chronic diseases and unhealthy weight gain, it is important to study how physical activity changes during and after pregnancy using prospective stud ... Full text Cite

Association between first-trimester vaginal bleeding and miscarriage.

Journal Article Obstetrics and gynecology · October 2009 ObjectiveTo estimate the strength of association between first-trimester bleeding and miscarriage, setting aside bleeding at time of loss.MethodsWomen enrolled in a community-based pregnancy cohort study before or during early pregnancy. ... Full text Cite

Quantification and statistical modeling--part I: breathing-zone concentrations of monomeric and polymeric 1,6-hexamethylene diisocyanate.

Journal Article The Annals of occupational hygiene · October 2009 We conducted a repeated exposure-assessment survey for task-based breathing-zone concentrations (BZCs) of monomeric and polymeric 1,6-hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) during spray painting on 47 automotive spray painters from North Carolina and Washington ... Full text Cite

Quantification and statistical modeling--part II: dermal concentrations of monomeric and polymeric 1,6-hexamethylene diisocyanate.

Journal Article The Annals of occupational hygiene · October 2009 We conducted a quantitative dermal and inhalation exposure assessment of monomeric and polymeric 1,6-hexamethylene diisocyanates (HDI) in 47 automotive spray painters from North Carolina and Washington State. We report here the use of linear mixed modeling ... Full text Cite

Stress questionnaires and stress biomarkers during pregnancy.

Journal Article Journal of women's health (2002) · September 2009 ObjectiveBoth self-reported indicators of stress and hormones such as cortisol and corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH) have been examined in relation to preterm birth. Although these hormones have been interpreted as biomarkers of stress, it is ... Full text Cite

Variability and predictors of changes in water use during pregnancy.

Journal Article Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · September 2009 Disinfection by-products in tap water have been found in some studies to be associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, but little is known about how water use and consumption might change during early pregnancy. Estimating water-related activities only at ... Full text Cite

Cervicoisthmic cerclage: transabdominal vs transvaginal approach.

Journal Article American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · July 2009 ObjectiveWe sought to compare the outcomes of cervicoisthmic (CI) cerclage using traditional transabdominal (TA) approach vs the lesser used transvaginal (TV) approach.Study designWe conducted a retrospective cohort study of women who und ... Full text Cite

Assessing urban and rural neighborhood characteristics using audit and GIS data: derivation and reliability of constructs.

Journal Article The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · July 2009 BackgroundMeasures to assess neighborhood environments are needed to better understand the salient features that may enhance outdoor physical activities, such as walking and bicycling for transport or leisure. The purpose of this study was to deri ... Full text Cite

Testing random effects in the linear mixed model using approximate bayes factors.

Journal Article Biometrics · June 2009 SummaryDeciding which predictor effects may vary across subjects is a difficult issue. Standard model selection criteria and test procedures are often inappropriate for comparing models with different numbers of random effects due to constraints o ... Full text Cite

Family and school socioeconomic disadvantage: interactive influences on adolescent dating violence victimization.

Journal Article Social science & medicine (1982) · June 2009 Although low socioeconomic status has been positively associated with adult partner violence, its relationship to adolescent dating violence remains unclear. Further, few studies have examined the relationship between contextual disadvantage and adolescent ... Full text Cite

The effect of fetal heart rate on the peak systolic velocity of the fetal middle cerebral artery.

Journal Article Obstetrics and gynecology · June 2009 ObjectiveTo estimate the effect of an increase in the basal heart rate of the fetus on the middle cerebral artery peak systolic velocity (MCA-PSV).MethodsThis was a prospective longitudinal cohort. Patients between 14 and 36 weeks of gest ... Full text Cite

Self-reported vitamin supplementation in early pregnancy and risk of miscarriage.

Journal Article American journal of epidemiology · June 2009 Miscarriage is a common and poorly understood adverse pregnancy outcome. In this study, the authors sought to evaluate the relation between self-reported use of prenatal vitamins in early pregnancy and the risk of miscarriage. Between 2000 and 2008, 4,752 ... Full text Cite

Angle correction can be used to measure peak systolic velocity in the fetal middle cerebral artery.

Journal Article American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · April 2009 ObjectiveThe objective of the study was to compare Doppler ultrasound measurements of the fetal middle cerebral artery peak systolic velocity (MCA-PSV) obtained at a 0 degrees angle of insonation to assessment at 30 degrees and 30 degrees with ang ... Full text Cite

Prevalence of uterine leiomyomas in the first trimester of pregnancy: an ultrasound-screening study.

Journal Article Obstetrics and gynecology · March 2009 ObjectiveTo estimate the proportion of pregnant women with one or more leiomyomas detected by research-quality ultrasound screening in the first trimester, to describe the size and location of leiomyomas identified, and to report variation in prev ... Full text Cite

Lactational exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, and dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene and infant neurodevelopment: an analysis of the pregnancy, infection, and nutrition babies study.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · March 2009 BackgroundPolychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic pollutants that were broadly used in the United States until the 1970s. Common exposure to PCBs, DDT, and dichlorodiphe ... Full text Cite

Bayesian methods for correcting misclassification: an example from birth defects epidemiology.

Journal Article Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · January 2009 BackgroundCleft lip with or without cleft palate (CL/P) and cleft palate only (CPO) are common congenital malformations. Numerous epidemiologic studies have shown an increased risk for orofacial clefts among children whose mothers smoked during ea ... Full text Cite

The joint effects of maternal prepregnancy body mass index and age on the risk of gastroschisis.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · January 2009 Young maternal age has been associated with an increased risk of gastroschisis, while high maternal weight status has been associated with a decreased risk. We were interested in investigating the joint effect of these two risk factors to identify threshol ... Full text Cite

Physical activity patterns during pregnancy.

Journal Article Medicine and science in sports and exercise · November 2008 PurposeThe aim of the study was to describe the mode, frequency, duration, and intensity of physical activity among pregnant women, to explore whether these women reached the recommended levels of activity, and to explore how these patterns change ... Full text Cite

Alteration in vaginal microflora, douching prior to pregnancy, and preterm birth.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · November 2008 We aimed to determine the relationship of douching prior to pregnancy and bacterial vaginosis (BV) during pregnancy on preterm birth, addressing individual and joint effects. We used a prospective cohort study and assessed vaginal microflora using gram sta ... Full text Cite

Comparison of gestational age at birth based on last menstrual period and ultrasound during the first trimester.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · November 2008 Reported last menstrual period (LMP) is commonly used to estimate gestational age (GA) but may be unreliable. Ultrasound in the first trimester is generally considered a highly accurate method of pregnancy dating. The authors compared first trimester repor ... Full text Cite

Dietary restraint and gestational weight gain.

Journal Article Journal of the American Dietetic Association · October 2008 ObjectiveTo determine whether a history of preconceptional dieting and restrained eating was related to higher weight gains in pregnancy.DesignDieting practices were assessed among a prospective cohort of pregnant women using the Revised ... Full text Cite

Dietary energy density but not glycemic load is associated with gestational weight gain.

Journal Article The American journal of clinical nutrition · September 2008 BackgroundMost pregnant women gain more weight than the ranges recommended. Excessive weight gain is linked to pregnancy complications and to long-term maternal and child health outcomes.ObjectiveThe objective was to examine the impact of ... Full text Cite

Drinking water disinfection by-product exposure and duration of gestation.

Journal Article Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · September 2008 BackgroundRecent studies suggest elevated exposure to drinking water disinfection by-products (DBPs) may be associated with decreased risk of preterm birth. We examined this association for exposure to total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), 5 haloacetic a ... Full text Cite

Drinking water disinfection by-product exposure and fetal growth.

Journal Article Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · September 2008 BackgroundPrevious studies suggest that elevated exposure to drinking water disinfection by-products (DBPs)--in particular, total trihalomethanes (TTHMs)--may lead to fetal growth restriction. We examined the effects of exposure to TTHMs, haloacet ... Full text Cite

Risk factors for uteroplacental vascular compromise and inflammation.

Journal Article American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · September 2008 ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to identify potentially modifiable risk factors of placental injury that reflect maternal uteroplacental vascular compromise (UPVC) and acute and chronic placental inflammation.Study designA prospect ... Full text Cite

Ethnicity and gestational diabetes in New York City, 1995-2003.

Journal Article BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology · July 2008 ObjectiveTo characterise the patterns of occurrence of gestational diabetes among a wide range of ethnic groups that reside in New York City.DesignBirth records and hospital discharge data were linked to more accurately assess the risk of ... Full text Cite

Stress and placental resistance measured by Doppler ultrasound in early and mid-pregnancy.

Journal Article Ultrasound in obstetrics & gynecology : the official journal of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology · July 2008 ObjectivesTo examine the association between self reports and biomarkers of stress and placental resistance (measured by Doppler ultrasound of the uterine and umbilical arteries), to determine if restriction of blood flow to the placenta is a mech ... Full text Cite

Bayesian selection and clustering of polymorphisms in functionally related genes

Journal Article Journal of the American Statistical Association · June 1, 2008 In epidemiologic studies, there is often interest in assessing the relationship between polymorphisms in functionally related genes and a health outcome. For each candidate gene, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data are collected at a number of locati ... Full text Cite

Drinking water disinfection by-products and time to pregnancy.

Journal Article Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · May 2008 BackgroundLaboratory evidence suggests tap water disinfection by-products (DBPs) could have an effect very early in pregnancy, typically before clinical detectability. Undetected early losses would be expected to increase the reported number of cy ... Full text Cite

Bayesian modeling of embryonic growth using latent variables.

Journal Article Biostatistics (Oxford, England) · April 2008 In a growth model, individuals move progressively through a series of states in which each state is indicative of developmental status. Interest lies in estimating the rate of progression through each state while incorporating covariates that might affect ... Full text Cite

Caffeine and miscarriage risk.

Journal Article Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · January 2008 BackgroundCoffee and caffeine have been inconsistently found to be associated with increased risk of clinical miscarriage-a potentially important association given the high prevalence of exposure.MethodsWomen were recruited before or earl ... Full text Cite

The association of perceived and objectively measured crime with physical activity: a cross-sectional analysis.

Journal Article Journal of physical activity & health · January 2008 BackgroundCrime is one aspect of the environment that can act as a barrier to physical activity. The goals of this study were to (1) compare measures of perceived crime with observed crime and (2) examine the association between the independent an ... Full text Cite

Bayesian Inference on Changes in Response Densities over Predictor Clusters.

Journal Article Journal of the American Statistical Association · January 2008 In epidemiology, it is often of interest to assess how individuals with different trajectories over time in an environmental exposure or biomarker differ with respect to a continuous response. For ease in interpretation and presentation of results, epidemi ... Full text Cite

Factors that influence the timing of spontaneous labor at term.

Journal Article The journal of maternal-fetal & neonatal medicine : the official journal of the European Association of Perinatal Medicine, the Federation of Asia and Oceania Perinatal Societies, the International Society of Perinatal Obstetricians · November 2007 ObjectiveWhether pre-term birth culminates as a result of a de novo pathologic process or is more simply early activation of physiologic mechanisms is unknown. Exploration of the onset of labor in term women with classical risk factors for early d ... Full text Cite

Maternal food insecurity is associated with increased risk of certain birth defects.

Journal Article The Journal of nutrition · September 2007 Food insecurity represents a lack of access to enough food to meet basic needs. We hypothesized that food insecurity may increase birth defect risks, because it is an indicator of increased stress or compromised nutrition, which are both implicated in birt ... Full text Cite

Structured measurement error in nutritional epidemiology: Applications in the pregnancy, infection, and nutrition (PIN) study

Journal Article Journal of the American Statistical Association · September 1, 2007 Preterm birth, defined as delivery before 37 completed weeks' gestation, is a leading cause of infant morbidity and mortality. Identifying factors related to preterm delivery is an important goal of public health professionals who wish to identify etiologi ... Full text Cite

The relationship between leisure, walking, and transportation activity with the natural environment.

Journal Article Health & place · September 2007 The purpose of this study was to quantify the agreement between perceived and objective measures of the natural environment and to assess their associations with physical activity. Perception of the natural environment was obtained through survey data. Obj ... Full text Cite

The healthy men study: an evaluation of exposure to disinfection by-products in tap water and sperm quality.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · August 2007 BackgroundChlorination of drinking water generates disinfection by-products (DBPs), which have been shown to disrupt spermatogenesis in rodents at high doses, suggesting that DBPs could pose a reproductive risk to men. In this study we assessed DB ... Full text Cite

Bayesian modeling of multiple episode occurrence and severity with a terminating event.

Journal Article Biometrics · June 2007 An individual's health condition can affect the frequency and intensity of episodes that can occur repeatedly and that may be related to an event time of interest. For example, bleeding episodes during pregnancy may indicate problems predictive of preterm ... Full text Cite

Exploring associations between physical activity and perceived and objective measures of the built environment.

Journal Article Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · March 2007 The built environment may be responsible for making nonmotorized transportation inconvenient, resulting in declines in physical activity. However, few studies have assessed both the perceived and objectively measured environment in association with physica ... Full text Cite

The healthy men study: design and recruitment considerations for environmental epidemiologic studies in male reproductive health.

Journal Article Fertility and sterility · March 2007 ObjectiveTo describe study design, conduct and response, and participant characteristics.DesignProspective cohort study.SettingParticipants were male partners of women who were enrolled in a community-based prospective cohort stu ... Full text Cite

Predictors of use and consumption of public drinking water among pregnant women.

Journal Article Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · March 2007 Disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water may be associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. However, the results from previous epidemiological studies are not consistent, perhaps in part due to individual variation in water use and consumption. Th ... Full text Cite

Bayesian methods for highly correlated exposure data.

Journal Article Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · March 2007 Studies that include individuals with multiple highly correlated exposures are common in epidemiology. Because standard maximum likelihood techniques often fail to converge in such instances, hierarchical regression methods have seen increasing use. Bayesi ... Full text Cite

Psychological and biological markers of stress and bacterial vaginosis in pregnant women.

Journal Article BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology · February 2007 ObjectivesTo determine whether stress is associated with risk of bacterial vaginosis (BV) in pregnant women.DesignProspective cohort study.SettingThe prenatal care clinics at the University of North Carolina. The residents' clini ... Full text Cite

Patterns of salivary cortisol secretion in pregnancy and implications for assessment protocols.

Journal Article Biological psychology · January 2007 Cortisol is used in research as a biomarker of psychological stress. Logistical considerations argue for collecting as few samples as possible, balanced against diurnal rhythms and intra-individual variations. 100 pregnant women gave five saliva samples a ... Full text Cite

Exposure to drinking water disinfection by-products and pregnancy loss.

Journal Article American journal of epidemiology · December 2006 Previous research has suggested that exposure to elevated levels of drinking water disinfection by-products (DBPs) may cause pregnancy loss. In 2000-2004, the authors conducted a study in three US locations of varying DBP levels and evaluated 2,409 women i ... Full text Cite

A diet quality index for American preschoolers based on current dietary intake recommendations and an indicator of energy balance.

Journal Article Journal of the American Dietetic Association · October 2006 ObjectiveBased on current dietary intake recommendations and a recommendation to limit sedentary activity in preschoolers, an overall diet quality index for preschoolers (RC-DQI) incorporating a component for energy balance to measure adequacy of ... Full text Cite

Comparison of residential geocoding methods in population-based study of air quality and birth defects.

Journal Article Environmental research · June 2006 Our population-based case-control study of air quality and birth defects in Texas relied on the geocoding of maternal residence from vital records for the assignment of air pollution exposures during early pregnancy. We attempted to geocode the maternal ad ... Full text Cite

Attitudes toward participation in a pregnancy and child cohort study.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · May 2006 While epidemiological studies aim for high participation rates, it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit and retain participants in lengthy observational studies. We surveyed women who recently participated in the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutritio ... Full text Cite

Violent crime exposure classification and adverse birth outcomes: a geographically-defined cohort study.

Journal Article International journal of health geographics · May 2006 BackgroundArea-level socioeconomic disparities have long been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Crime is an important element of the neighborhood environment inadequately investigated in the reproductive and public health literature. Whe ... Full text Cite

Methodologic issues in the design and analysis of epidemiologic studies of pregnancy outcome.

Journal Article Statistical methods in medical research · April 2006 Using epidemiology to elucidate the causes of adverse pregnancy outcomes offers unique opportunities and poses distinctive challenges. The context of pregnancy includes contraception and planning, medical interventions altering the natural history, and the ... Full text Cite

Physical activity and magnetic field exposure in pregnancy.

Journal Article Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · March 2006 BackgroundPeak magnetic field exposure was associated with increased risk of miscarriage in 2 recent studies. Reduced physical activity levels in healthy pregnancies may affect measured exposure and thus bias results.MethodsWe recruited 1 ... Full text Cite

Characteristics that predict locating and interviewing mothers identified by a state birth defects registry and vital records.

Journal Article Birth defects research. Part A, Clinical and molecular teratology · January 2006 BackgroundState vital records are often used to select population-based controls in record-linkage studies of birth defects. However, locating and contacting individuals based on these data sources to collect additional data can be a challenge. Full text Cite

Correlates of intake of folic acid-containing supplements among pregnant women.

Journal Article American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · January 2006 ObjectiveThis study describes the timing and correlates of folic acid supplement intake among pregnant women.Study designData from 2518 women with estimated delivery dates from 1997 to 2000, collected for the National Birth Defects Preven ... Full text Cite

Relation between ambient air quality and selected birth defects, seven county study, Texas, 1997-2000.

Journal Article American journal of epidemiology · August 2005 A population-based case-control study investigated the association between maternal exposure to air pollutants, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter <10 microm in aerodynamic diameter during weeks 3-8 of pregnanc ... Full text Cite

Probability samples of area births versus clinic populations for reproductive epidemiology studies.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · July 2005 Studies of pregnancy outcome are generally based either on geographically defined populations, often from birth records, or on clinic or hospital populations. We compared women recruited into a clinic-based study, the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition (P ... Full text Cite

Predictors of vaginal bleeding during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · July 2005 This study evaluates maternal age, race, cigarette smoking, prior spontaneous abortion, prior induced abortion, and prior preterm birth in relation to vaginal bleeding during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. Information on vaginal bleeding and predic ... Full text Cite

Bayesian model selection and averaging in additive and proportional hazards models.

Journal Article Lifetime data analysis · June 2005 Although Cox proportional hazards regression is the default analysis for time to event data, there is typically uncertainty about whether the effects of a predictor are more appropriately characterized by a multiplicative or additive model. To accommodate ... Full text Cite

A time-series analysis of air pollution and preterm birth in Pennsylvania, 1997-2001.

Journal Article Environmental health perspectives · May 2005 Preterm delivery can lead to serious infant health outcomes, including death and lifelong disability. Small increases in preterm delivery risk in relation to spatial gradients of air pollution have been reported, but previous studies may have controlled in ... Full text Cite

Should spontaneous and medically indicated preterm births be separated for studying aetiology?

Journal Article Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · March 2005 An increasing proportion of preterm births result from medical interventions, and the practice of aggregating all preterm births vs. splitting into spontaneous and medically indicated preterm births is inconsistent. While mechanistic and clinical arguments ... Full text Cite

Missing-data methods for generalized linear models: A comparative review

Journal Article Journal of the American Statistical Association · March 1, 2005 Missing data is a major issue in many applied problems, especially in the biomedical sciences. We review four common approaches for inference in generalized linear models (GLMs) with missing covariate data: maximum likelihood (ML), multiple imputation (MI) ... Full text Cite

Reducing misclassification in assignment of timing of events during pregnancy.

Journal Article Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · January 2005 BackgroundPerinatal epidemiology studies often collect only the calendar month in which an event occurs in early pregnancy because it is difficult for women to recall a specific day when queried later in pregnancy or postpartum. Lack of day inform ... Full text Cite

Bayesian latent variable models for mixed discrete outcomes.

Journal Article Biostatistics (Oxford, England) · January 2005 In studies of complex health conditions, mixtures of discrete outcomes (event time, count, binary, ordered categorical) are commonly collected. For example, studies of skin tumorigenesis record latency time prior to the first tumor, increases in the number ... Full text Cite

Second trimester folate status and preterm birth.

Journal Article American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · December 2004 ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to show that maternal folate status during pregnancy may be related to preterm birth.Study designWomen were recruited at 24 to 29 weeks' gestation from 1995 to 2000 into the Pregnancy, Infection, and ... Full text Cite

Modeling the effects of a bidirectional latent predictor from multivariate questionnaire data.

Journal Article Biometrics · December 2004 Researchers often measure stress using questionnaire data on the occurrence of potentially stress-inducing life events and the strength of reaction to these events, characterized as negative or positive and assigned an ordinal ranking. In studying the heal ... Full text Cite

Length of hospital stays among obese individuals.

Journal Article American journal of public health · September 2004 ObjectivesWe examined lengths of hospital stay among individuals categorized according to weight status.MethodsWe used data from the First National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Epidemiologic Followup Survey to estimate length-o ... Full text Cite

Changes in diet quality of American preschoolers between 1977 and 1998.

Journal Article American journal of public health · September 2004 ObjectivesWe determined diet quality trends among nationally representative samples of preschoolers between 1977 and 1998.MethodsAdjusted diet quality index scores, overall intake, and tertiles of total score were compared for combined sa ... Full text Cite

Vaginal bleeding during pregnancy and preterm birth.

Journal Article American journal of epidemiology · July 2004 This study investigated the relation between self-reported vaginal bleeding during pregnancy and preterm birth in a prospective cohort of 2,829 pregnant women enrolled from prenatal clinics between 1995 and 2000 in central North Carolina. The overall assoc ... Full text Cite

Non-ignorable missing covariate data in survival analysis: A case-study of an International Breast Cancer Study Group trial

Journal Article Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series C: Applied Statistics · May 20, 2004 Non-ignorable missing data, a serious problem in both clinical trials and observational studies, can lead to biased inferences. Quality-of-life measures have become increasingly popular in clinical trials. However, these measures are often incompletely obs ... Full text Cite

Bariatric surgeries in north Carolina, 1990 to 2001: a gender comparison.

Journal Article Obesity research · December 2003 ObjectiveThe purpose of this research was to determine the number of bariatric procedures in obese men and women in a well-defined population and to examine gender differences among bariatric patients.Research methods and proceduresData o ... Full text Cite

Bayesian inferences in the Cox model for order-restricted hypotheses.

Journal Article Biometrics · December 2003 In studying the relationship between an ordered categorical predictor and an event time, it is standard practice to include dichotomous indicators of the different levels of the predictor in a Cox model. One can then use a multiple degree-of-freedom score ... Full text Cite

The effect of weight change on nursing care facility admission in the NHANES I Epidemiologic Followup Survey.

Journal Article Journal of clinical epidemiology · September 2003 Data from the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Epidemiologic Followup Survey were used to examine whether weight change was associated with an increased relative risk of nursing care facility admission. Hazard ratios were calculated w ... Full text Cite

Modeling community-level effects on preterm birth.

Journal Article Annals of epidemiology · May 2003 PurposeWe demonstrate modeling of community-level socioeconomic influences on risk of preterm birth (< 37 weeks gestation) in the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition (PIN) Study.MethodsCommunity-level information from the US Census was li ... Full text Cite

Comparison of pregnancy dating by last menstrual period, ultrasound scanning, and their combination.

Journal Article American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · December 2002 ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of algorithms for the assignment of gestational age with the use of the last menstrual period and early ultrasound information.Study designGestational age estimates that are ... Full text Cite

Obesity affects nursing-care facility admission among whites but not blacks.

Journal Article Obesity research · August 2002 ObjectiveThis study examines whether obese individuals have a greater rate of nursing care facility admission than normal weight individuals.Research methods and proceduresData from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Epi ... Full text Cite

Indicators of cocaine exposure and preterm birth.

Journal Article Obstetrics and gynecology · March 2002 ObjectiveTo identify predictors of cocaine exposure during pregnancy, using hair and urine assays and self-report, and the association with preterm birth.MethodsA nested case-control study was conducted in a cohort of 2611 black and white ... Full text Cite

Frailty models with missing covariates.

Journal Article Biometrics · March 2002 We present a method for estimating the parameters in random effects models for survival data when covariates are subject to missingness. Our method is more general than the usual frailty model as it accommodates a wide range of distributions for the random ... Full text Cite

Likelihood-based methods for missing covariates in the cox proportional hazards model

Journal Article Journal of the American Statistical Association · March 1, 2001 Problems associated with missing covariate data are well known but often ignored. We present a method for estimating the parameters in the Cox proportional hazards model when the missing data are missing at random (MAR) and censoring is noninformative. Due ... Full text Cite

Immunohistochemical localization of epidermal growth factor in cat paradental tissues during tooth movement.

Journal Article American journal of orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics : official publication of the American Association of Orthodontists, its constituent societies, and the American Board of Orthodontics · August 2000 Epidermal growth factor enhances proliferation and differentiation of cells during growth, maturation, and tissue healing. The objectives were to localize the epidermal growth factor in paradental cells and to determine the effect of orthodontic treatment ... Full text Cite

Cardiovascular malformations: changes in prevalence and birth status, 1972-1990.

Journal Article American journal of medical genetics · May 1999 Through an ongoing hospital-based active malformation surveillance program, we identified cardiovascular malformations (CVMs) in 3.3 per 1,000 liveborn and stillborn infants, and fetuses from pregnancies terminated electively during a 15-year period. We ex ... Full text Cite