Background: Floods are the most common climate-related disaster; yet previous studies have investigated the impact of floods on only a few health outcomes in narrow spatiotemporal settings. We aimed to assess the association between severe flood exposure and cause-specific hospitalisation rates in adults older than 65 years in the contiguous USA.
Methods: In this retrospective matched cohort analysis, we obtained inpatient claims data from Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries older than 65 years living in the contiguous USA from Jan 1, 2000, to Dec 31, 2016.
Background Poor air quality is associated with cardiovascular morbidity. However, the underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms are unclear. Purpose To determine the relationship between long-term exposure to ambient fine particulate matter with 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Epidemiol
August 2025
Background: Epidemiologic studies have associated higher neighborhood greenness with lower type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk. However, more work is needed to assess interrelationships between greenness, T2D risk factors, and T2D. Our aim was to prospectively evaluate the association between greenness and T2D incidence, and investigate effect modifiers, in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and Nurses' Health Study II (NHSII) cohorts of US women.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMonitoring small-area geographical population trends in opioid mortality has significant implications for informing preventative resource allocation. A common approach to estimating small-area opioid mortality uses a standard disease mapping method where population-at-risk estimates (denominators) are treated as fixed. This assumption ignores the uncertainty in small-area population estimates, potentially biasing risk estimates and underestimating their uncertainties.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProstate cancer and its treatment can impact health-related quality of life. Evidence for physical activity strategies sustained over long periods to improve quality of life is limited. Given the limited feasibility of a randomized trial to answer this question, we emulated a target trial of physical activity strategies based on current clinical guidelines and 6-year quality of life using observational data from 1,549 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study diagnosed with nonmetastatic prostate cancer between 2004-2016.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Toxicological evidence suggests that ambient air pollution has endocrine-disrupting properties that can affect menstrual cycle functioning, which represents an important marker of women's reproductive health. We aimed to estimate the effect of short-term and long-term PM exposure on menstrual cycle outcomes across the USA, Brazil, and Mexico using self-reported data from a mobile health app.
Methods: For this prospective observational study, we collected de-identified self-reported data from the Clue mobile health app, in which users self-tracked menstruation cycles.
Environ Health Perspect
June 2025
Background: Research has detected associations between air pollution exposure and type 2 diabetes (T2DM), but findings from large cohort studies are needed to ascertain the most influential pollutants, susceptible subpopulations, and low-level exposure associations. Our aim was to prospectively evaluate the association between long-term exposure to fine particulate matter in aerodynamic diameter () and nitrogen dioxide () and T2DM incidence in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and Nurses' Health Study II (NHSII) cohorts of US women.
Methods: Monthly and exposures were predicted from spatiotemporal models and linked to participants' residential addresses.
JAMA Netw Open
April 2025
Importance: The escalating intensity of wildfires in the western US is increasing exposure to smoke pollution. Previous studies of wildfire smoke and health have primarily focused on mortality and respiratory and cardiovascular events, with limited research on broader health impacts or on the shape of concentration-response curves.
Objective: To characterize the associations between exposure to smoke-specific fine particulate matter (PM2.
Flooding greatly endangers public health and is an urgent concern as rapid population growth in flood-prone regions and more extreme weather events will increase the number of people at risk. However, an exhaustive analysis of mortality following floods has not been conducted. Here we used 35.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground Climate change adversely affects human health, resulting in higher demand for health care services. However, the impact of climate-related environmental exposures on medical imaging utilization is currently unknown. Purpose To determine associations of short-term exposures to ambient heat and particulate air pollution with utilization of emergency department medical imaging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Public Health Manag Pract
September 2024
Context: Technological innovation and access to big data have allowed partisan gerrymandering to increase dramatically in recent redistricting cycles.
Objective: To understand whether and how partisan gerrymandering, including "packing" and "cracking" (ie, respectively concentrating within or dividing specified social groups across political boundaries), distorts understanding of public health need when health statistics are calculated for congressional districts (CDs).
Design: Cross-sectional study using 2020 CDs and nonpartisan simulated districts.
Introduction: Neighborhood greenness may benefit long-term prostate cancer survivorship by promoting physical activity and social integration, and reducing stress and exposure to air pollution, noise, and extreme temperatures. We examined associations of neighborhood greenness and long-term physical and psychosocial quality of life in prostate cancer survivors in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Methods: We included 1437 individuals diagnosed with non-metastatic prostate cancer between 2008 and 2016 across the United States.
Purpose: Prostate cancer survivors may benefit from a supportive social environment. We investigated associations of social integration and long-term physical and psychosocial quality of life among prostate cancer survivors who were participants in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Methods: We included 1,428 individuals diagnosed with non-metastatic prostate cancer between 2008 and 2016.
Background: Little is known about the impact of environmental exposures on mortality risk after a myocardial infarction (MI).
Objective: The goal of this study was to evaluate associations of long-term temperature, air pollution and greenness exposures with mortality among survivors of an MI.
Methods: We used data from the US-based Nurses' Health Study to construct an open cohort of survivors of a nonfatal MI 1990-2017.
Background: Multiple studies from countries with relatively lower PM level demonstrated that acute and chronic exposure even at lower than recommended level, e.g., 9 μg/m in the US increased the risk of cardiovascular (CV) events.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To assess the association between ambient heat and all-cause and cause-specific emergency department (ED) visits and acute hospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries in the conterminous United States.
Design: Retrospective cohort study.
Setting: Conterminous US from 2008 and 2019.
Background: Air pollution risk assessments do not generally quantify health impacts using multipollutant risk estimates, but instead use results from single-pollutant or copollutant models. Multipollutant epidemiological models account for pollutant interactions and joint effects but can be computationally complex and data intensive. Risk estimates from multipollutant studies are therefore challenging to implement in the quantification of health impacts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo investigate the impact of the US Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 on Black and Black versus White infant deaths in Jim Crow states. Using data from 1959 to 1980 and 2017 to 2021, we applied difference-in-differences methods to quantify differential pre-post VRA changes in infant deaths in VRA-exposed versus unexposed counties, controlling for population size and social, economic, and health system characteristics. VRA-exposed counties, identified by Section 4, were subject to government interventions to remove existing racist voter suppression policies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To measure the association between ambient heat and hypoglycemia-related emergency department visit or hospitalization in insulin users.
Research Design And Methods: We identified cases of serious hypoglycemia among adults using insulin aged ≥65 in the U.S.
Curr Environ Health Rep
December 2023
Purpose Of Review: Environmental exposures have been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular mortality and acute coronary events, but their relationship with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and sudden cardiac death (SCD) remains unclear. SCD is an important contributor to the global burden of cardiovascular disease worldwide.
Recent Findings: Current literature suggests a relationship between environmental exposures and cardiovascular disease, but their relationship with OHCA/SCD remains unclear.
Background: While studies suggest impacts of individual environmental exposures on type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk, mechanisms remain poorly characterized. Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) is a biomarker of glycemia and diagnostic criterion for prediabetes and T2D. We explored associations between multiple environmental exposures and HbA1c in non-diabetic adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To evaluate the synergistic effects created by fine particulate matter (PM) and corticosteroid use on hospitalisation and mortality in older adults at high risk for cardiovascular thromboembolic events (CTEs).
Design And Setting: A retrospective cohort study using a US nationwide administrative healthcare claims database.
Participants: A 50% random sample of participants with high-risk conditions for CTE from the 2008-2016 Medicare Fee-for-Service population.
The U.S. Census Bureau will implement a modernized privacy-preserving disclosure avoidance system (DAS), which includes application of differential privacy, on publicly released 2020 census data.
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