Publications by authors named "Xuejuan Ning"
Background: The impacts of environmental health risk factors, including temperature, vary across urban and rural areas. Application of different metrics of rurality and urbanicity can yield different risk characterizations. We aimed to identify, describe, and quantify how urban/rural metrics are used in epidemiologic studies of ambient temperature and health across the United States (US).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaternal Residential Mobility Between Births: A California Statewide Study.
Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol
July 2025
Background: Studies of perinatal and paediatric health often analyse data from consecutive pregnancies. However, little is known about the factors associated with maternal residential changes between births or how maternal mobility may affect the validity of epidemiological findings, particularly those involving geographic-based measurements.
Objectives: Using a statewide sibling cohort, we studied the pattern of residential mobility between births and its association with several major sociodemographic and perinatal factors.
Background: Emerging research has suggested a link between ambient temperature and mental and neurological conditions such as depression and dementia. This systematic review aims to summarize the epidemiological evidence on the effects of ambient temperature on mental and neurological conditions in older adults, who may be more vulnerable to temperature-related health effects compared to younger individuals.
Methods: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Ovid/Embase, Web of Science, and Ovid/PsycINFO on July 17, 2023, and updated on July 31, 2024.
Evaluating progress and accountability for achieving COP26 Health Programme international ambitions for sustainable, low-carbon, resilient health-care systems.
Lancet Planet Health
October 2024
Article Synopsis
- The COP26 Health Programme, launched at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference, aims to create low-carbon and resilient health systems, with 83 countries committed to the initiative as of May 2024.
- The analysis highlights significant issues in current monitoring practices, showing that many countries focus on process indicators that don't truly measure progress towards sustainable health-care systems.
- There is a critical need for better, adaptable indicators that can effectively track health-care outcomes and contribute to climate strategies, ensuring that the COP26 Health Programme achieves its goals without misleading claims.
Article Synopsis
- - The study aimed to evaluate whether the shortened 16-item version of the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) is effective for estimating autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk factors, compared to the full 65-item version.
- - Researchers analyzed data from 2,760 participants in the ECHO Program to compare the association between gestational age (a known ASD risk factor) and SRS scores using various statistical methods.
- - Results showed that both the full and short SRS scores produced highly similar associations with preterm birth, indicating that the shortened version is valid for use in large-scale studies, potentially reducing participant burden.
Background: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent and ubiquitous chemicals associated with risk of adverse birth outcomes. Results of previous studies have been inconsistent. Associations between PFAS and birth outcomes may be affected by psychosocial stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrior work has examined associations between cardiometabolic pregnancy complications and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but not how these complications may relate to social communication traits more broadly. We addressed this question within the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes program, with 6,778 participants from 40 cohorts conducted from 1998-2021 with information on ASD-related traits via the Social Responsiveness Scale. Four metabolic pregnancy complications were examined individually, and combined, in association with Social Responsiveness Scale scores, using crude and adjusted linear regression as well as quantile regression analyses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- This study investigated the relationship between maternal smoking during pregnancy and the risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children, analyzing data from 72 cohorts related to child health outcomes.* -
- Findings showed no overall association of maternal smoking with child ASD diagnosis; however, when excluding certain cohorts, there was a modest increase in ASD risk among children of smokers, with an adjusted odds ratio of 1.44.* -
- The study also found that children of smoking mothers exhibited more ASD-related traits, suggesting that maternal smoking is linked to increased quantitative ASD characteristics, even though self-reporting and unmeasured factors limit the definitive conclusions.*
Enforcement agencies and smoke-free policy compliance: An observational study in Qingdao, China.
Tob Induc Dis
April 2021
Article Synopsis
- A study was conducted to evaluate compliance with Qingdao's smoke-free policy, implemented in 2013, focusing on various venues across the city and the role of different enforcement agencies.
- Data collected from 694 venues showed that 64.7% complied with no evidence of smoking, but compliance rates varied significantly by enforcement agency, with the Public Security Bureau showing better results compared to the Industry and Commercial Administration.
- The findings indicated challenges in enforcement, such as 2% of venues under I&C having designated smoking areas despite the policy prohibiting them, highlighting the need for improved coordination and adherence to tobacco control measures.
Background And Aims: We aimed at comprehensively evaluate the independent association of diabetes and its duration with incident abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) and aortic diameter.
Methods And Results: We prospectively studied incident AAA according to baseline glycemic status (diabetes, prediabetes, normal glycemia) in 13,116 ARIC participants (1990-1992) and the time-varying exposure of duration post incident diabetes in 11,675 participants (1987-1989) using Cox models. Additionally, we cross-sectionally explored ultrasound-based abdominal aortic diameter by glycemic status and cumulative duration of diabetes in 4710 participants (2011-2013) using linear regression models.
Prior work proposed a shortened version of the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), a commonly used quantitative measure of social communication traits. We used data from 3031 participants (including 190 ASD cases) from the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program to compare distributional properties and criterion validity of 16-item "short" to 65-item "full" SRS scores. Results demonstrated highly overlapping distributions of short and full scores.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAssociation of Sleep Duration with Weight Gain and General and Central Obesity Risk in Chinese Adults: A Prospective Study.
Obesity (Silver Spring)
February 2020
Objective: Evidence on the association between sleep duration and obesity among adults is inconsistent. Prospective studies investigating the association in Chinese adults have been limited. This study aims to prospectively evaluate sleep duration in relation to subsequent weight gain and general and central obesity risk among Chinese adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) programs have expanded rapidly, but evaluating their impact on hospital care is challenging.
Objectives: To demonstrate how careful study design can reveal POLST's impact at hospital admission and why analyses of state registry data are unlikely to capture POLST's effects.
Design: Prospective cohort study.