Familial Differences in Personal PM Exposure within a Rural African Community Explained with Spatiotemporal Exposure Apportionment.

Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) from solid-fuel combustion is a major determinant of global morbidity and mortality. However, variations in exposure remain uncertain across many high-risk populations. This work describes personal PM exposures among household members (adult men, adult women, and children) in rural sub-Saharan Africa, where biomass fuel is the primary household energy source.

Time-Series Analysis of Infant Mortality Disaggregated by Race, Ethnicity, and Specific Causes After 6-Week Abortion Ban.

Introduction: In 2021, Texas Senate Bill 8 banned abortion after 6 weeks of gestation. Prior research has shown persistent differences in infant mortality by race/ethnicity and an overall increase in infant mortality in association with Senate Bill 8. It is unclear whether recent changes may be differential by race, ethnicity, and causes of death.

Distributed lag interaction model with index modification.

Epidemiological evidence supports an association between exposure to air pollution during pregnancy and birth and child health outcomes. Typically, such associations are estimated by regressing an outcome on daily or weekly measures of exposure during pregnancy using a distributed lag model. However, these associations may be modified by multiple factors.

Association of reproductive access restrictions and out-of-state abortion care in Colorado: an interrupted time series analysis for 2018 to 2024.

Objective: Access to abortion has changed dramatically in the United States in recent years, both at the federal and state level. For nearly 50 years, the right to abortion was considered a federally protected right under the Roev. Wade (1973) recognition of privacy rights under the 14th Amendment.

Impact of the Wood-Burning Cookstove on Glycated Hemoglobin (HbA1c): A Stepped-Wedge Randomized Trial in Rural Honduras.

Background: Type 2 diabetes is a rapidly growing global health challenge in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and evidence suggests that air pollution exposure contributes. Household air pollution from burning solid fuels for cooking is a major burden in LMICs, but studies demonstrating associations between reductions in household air pollution and improvements in HbA1c, a biomarker of diabetes risk, are lacking. We previously reported substantial reductions in fine particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter () and black carbon concentrations following an intervention in rural Honduras with the cookstove, a wood-burning stove with an engineered combustion chamber and chimney.

Windows of susceptibility to air pollution during and surrounding pregnancy in relation to longitudinal maternal measures of adiposity and lipid profiles.

Pregnancy is a critical window for long-term metabolic programming of fetal effects stemming from airborne particulate matter ≤2.5 μm (PM) exposure. Yet, little is known about long-term metabolic effects of PM exposure during and surrounding pregnancy in mothers.

The Association of County-Level Presidential Election Outcome and COVID-19 Mortality in Colorado, 2020-2022.

Context: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic occurred during a time of political tension in the United States. County-level political environment may have been influential in COVID-19 outcomes.

Objective: This study examined the association between county-level political environment and age-adjusted COVID-19 mortality rates from 2020 to 2022.

Windows of Susceptibility to Air Pollution During and Surrounding Pregnancy in Relation to Longitudinal Maternal Measures of Adiposity and Lipid Profiles.

Pregnancy is a critical window for long-term metabolic programming of fetal effects stemming from airborne particulate matter ≤2.5μm (PM ) exposure. Yet, little is known about long-term metabolic effects of PM exposure during and surrounding pregnancy in mothers.

spconfShiny: An R Shiny application for calculating the spatial scale of smoothing splines for point data.

Epidemiological analyses of environmental exposures often benefit from including spatial splines in models to account for confounding by spatial location. Understanding how the number of splines relates to physical spatial differences is not always intuitive and can be context-dependent. To address this, we developed a R Shiny application, spconfShiny, that provides a user-friendly platform to calculate an effective bandwidth metric that quantifies the relationship between spatial splines and the range of implied spatial smoothing.

Penalized distributed lag interaction model: Air pollution, birth weight, and neighborhood vulnerability.

Maternal exposure to air pollution during pregnancy has a substantial public health impact. Epidemiological evidence supports an association between maternal exposure to air pollution and low birth weight. A popular method to estimate this association while identifying windows of susceptibility is a distributed lag model (DLM), which regresses an outcome onto exposure history observed at multiple time points.

Impact of randomly assigned "pay-as-you-go" liquefied petroleum gas prices on energy use for cooking: Experimental pilot evidence from rural Rwanda.

The disease burden related to air pollution from traditional solid-fuel cooking practices in low- and middle-income countries impacts millions of people globally. Although the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fuel for cooking can meaningfully reduce household air pollution concentrations, major barriers, including affordability and accessibility, have limited widespread adoption. Using a randomized controlled trial, our objective was to evaluate the association between the cost and use of LPG among 23 rural Rwandan households.

Early-life exposure to residential black carbon and childhood cardiometabolic health.

Background: Early life exposure to air pollution, such as particulate matter ≤2.5 μm (PM), may be associated with obesity and adverse cardiometabolic health outcomes in childhood. However, the toxicity of PM varies according to its chemical composition.

Large Particle Emissions from Human Vocalization and Playing of Wind Instruments.

Humans emit large salivary particles when talking, singing, and playing musical instruments, which have implications for respiratory disease transmission. Yet little work has been done to characterize the emission rates and size distributions of such particles. This work characterized large particle ( > 35 μm in aerodynamic diameter) emissions from 70 volunteers of varying age and sex while vocalizing and playing wind instruments.

A nationwide survey on producer and veterinarian perceptions of the painfulness of procedures and disease states in dairy and beef cattle.

Failure to adequately manage pain in cattle causes suffering and is thus a welfare concern for the livestock industry. The objectives of this study were to summarize caregiver perceptions of the painfulness of various procedures and disease conditions in cattle. This survey also assessed factors that impact the perception of painfulness and determined relationships between pain perception and mitigation in producers and veterinarians in the United States beef and dairy cattle industries.