1,721,085 research outputs found
Socioeconomic gradients in smoking among young women : a British survey.
No full textMarked and increasing socioeconomic gradients in cigarette smoking are well established. Tracking these differentials among women requires appropriate measures of their socioeconomic position (SEP) which are equivalent across older and younger age groups. This study examines socioeconomic gradients in cigarette smoking by age among women aged 20-34, using a standard indicator of SEP (age left full-time education) and alternative indicators which take account of changes in women's educational levels across age cohorts. The study is based on a large cross-sectional British data set (n = 12,398), the Southampton Women's Survey, conducted 1998-2002. Poisson log-linear regression with adjusted variance was used to predict smoking status (ever smoked > or =1 cigarette a day for 1 year, currently smoking > or =1 cigarette a day, and ex-smoker - ever-smoker not currently smoking > or =1 cigarette a day) in models which controlled for SEP, age and year of interview. Socioeconomic gradients in ever-smoking were marked but stable across age groups. With quitting more prevalent in the higher than lower socioeconomic groups, gradients in current smoking steepened across age groups, with significant age/SEP interactions. The socioeconomic patterning of ever, ex and current smoking was similar using both the standard and alternative measures of education, but interactions were less pronounced with the alternative measures. Socioeconomic indicators which take account of the recent and rapid increase in women's educational participation rates may provide a more reliable indication of age-related differentials in smoking status than standard measures. Nonetheless, both conventional and alternative measures point to stable socioeconomic differentials in rates of ever-smoking and widening differentials in current smoking across age groups. Our study confirms that addressing the link between socioeconomic disadvantage and tobacco use remains a major challenge for the tobacco control community
The long-term effects of prenatal development on growth and metabolism
No full textPeople who were small at birth and had poor infant growth have an increased risk of adult cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and type 2 diabetes, particularly if their restricted early growth was followed by increased childhood weight gain. These relations extend across the normal range of birth size in a graded manner, so reduced size is not a prerequisite. In addition, larger birth size is associated with risks of obesity and type 2 diabetes. The associations appear to reflect developmental plastic responses made by the fetus and infant based on cues about the environment, influenced by maternal characteristics including diet, body composition, stress, and exercise levels. These responses involve epigenetic processes that modify the offspring's phenotype. Vulnerability to ill health results if the environment in infancy, childhood, and later life is mismatched to the phenotype induced in development, informed by the developmental cues. This mismatch may arise through unbalanced diet or body composition of the mother or a change in lifestyle factors between generations. These insights offer new possibilities for the early diagnosis and prevention of chronic disease.<br/
Infant sleep disturbance is associated with preconceptional psychological distress: findings from the Southampton Women's Survey
No full textStudy Objective: To determine whether preconceptional psychological distress is associated with infant sleep disturbance.Design: Prospective cohort studySetting: Southampton, UK.Participants: Acohort of women from the Southampton Women’s Survey (SWS), who were recruited between 20-34 years of age and followed through their subsequent pregnancies and beyond; a total of 874 mother-infant pairs were involved in the study.Measurements and Results: Preconceptional psychological distress was measured with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). When their infants were 6 and 12 months of age, mothers were asked to report the number of times babies woke on average between the hours of midnight and 06:00 each night during a 2-week period. Preconceptional psychological distress was a strong predictor of infant night waking at both 6 and 12 months of age, independent of the effects of postnatal depression, bedroom sharing, and other confounding factors. At 6 months, preconceptional distress was associated with a 23% increased risk of waking (prevalence ratio [PR] 1.23, 95% CI 1.06-1.44), and at 12 months with a 22% increased risk (PR 1.22, 95% confidence intervals [CI] 1.02-1.46).Conclusions: Women with preconceptional psychological distress are more likely to have babies with sleep disturbance during infancy, independent of whether they suffered from postnatal depression
Confidentiality of personal health information used for research
No full textMedical research has a long history in the United Kingdom and has generally enjoyed good public support. Researchers take confidentiality seriously and few breaches have been recorded. Concerns over research practices at Alder Hey hospital related to consent rather than confidentiality,1 but they tarnished the overall reputation of research. At much the same time, the Data Protection Act 1998 defined stricter criteria for handling personal data,2 supplementing the provisions in the UK common law of confidentiality. There is thus a legal and a moral impetus to ensure that research is conducted with the maximum respect for participants and their privacy, even if the research is not linked to clinical care. Many questions can be answered without the active participation of individuals, but researchers must strike a careful balance between their pursuit of health improvements for all and their obligation to maintain the privacy of individuals participating in research
Personal exposures of children to nitrogen dioxide relative to concentrations in outdoor air
No full textObjectives: To investigate the relation between fluctuations in personal exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in school children and changes in outdoor NO2 concentrations.Methods: 114 Asthmatic school children aged 7-12 years were recruited from the Southampton area. Weekly average personal exposures to NO2 were measured over a 13 month period with passive diffusion tubes. At the same time, outdoor NO2 concentrations were monitored at a fixed site in the centre of Southampton. Correlations between weekly personal exposures and mean outdoor concentrations during the same periods were examined.Results: Mean duration of follow up was 32 weeks. Measurements of weekly mean personal NO2 exposures were generally low and ranged from 0.7 to 496 µg/m3 with a geometric mean of 17 µg/m3. Substantial variation in personal exposures occurred between children and more especially within individual children from week to week. Daily outdoor concentrations of NO2 ranged from 4.3 to 29.8 µg/m3, with a geometric mean of 12.3 µg/m3. There was no evidence of seasonal variation in outdoor concentrations. No significant correlation was found between each child's weekly mean personal exposures to NO2 and mean outdoor concentrations for the corresponding periods.Conclusion: At low outdoor NO2 concentrations, fluctuations in NO2 in outdoor air as measured at a central monitoring station do not contribute importantly to variations in personal exposure when averaged over a week
Stability of dietary patterns in young women over a 2-year period
No full textObjective: To examine the stability of dietary patterns in young women over a two-year period and to identify factors that influence stability.Design: A food frequency questionnaire was used to assess diet. In a subgroup, this was repeated after 2 years. Questions were asked about major changes to diet over this time. Dietary patterns were identified using principal components analysis and pattern scores were compared at the two time points. The consumption of foods was also examined. The relationship between change in pattern scores and socio-demographic factors and body mass index was assessed.Setting: The Southampton Women's Survey, a prospective study of diet, health and lifestyle in young women and their influences on fetal growthSubjects: A subgroup of 94 women from a cohort of 6129 nonpregnant women aged 20–34 years.Results: Two dietary patterns, labelled ‘prudent’ and ‘high energy’, were identified. Spearman correlation coefficients between the initial and repeat scores for the prudent and high-energy patterns were 0.81 and 0.64, respectively. Average changes (repeat – initial) were 0.13 and ?0.01 SD of initial score. Change in prudent dietary pattern score was influenced by amount of strenuous exercise taken and by changes in partnership status. An increase in high-energy pattern score was associated with lower social class.Conclusions: Dietary patterns in young women are reasonably stable over a 2-year period. This suggests that dietary patterns identified in the recent past may provide useful information about current dietary patterns.Sponsorship: The study was funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust, the University of Southampton and the Medical Research Council.<br/
Cut-off points for anthropometric indices of adiposity: differential classification in a large population of young women
No full textAnthropometric indices of adiposity include BMI, waist circumference and waist:height ratio. In the recruitment phase of a prospective cohort study carried out between 1998 and 2002 we studied a population sample of 11 786 white Caucasian non-pregnant women in Southampton, UK aged 20-34 years, and explored the extent to which proposed cut-off points for the three indices identified the same or different women and how these indices related to adiposity. Height, weight and waist circumference were measured and fat mass was estimated from skinfold thicknesses; fat mass index was calculated as fat mass/height1.65. Of the subjects, 4869 (42 %) women were overweight (BMI >/= 25 kg/m2) and 1849 (16 %) were obese (BMI >/= 30 kg/m2). A total of 890 (8 %) subjects were not overweight but had a waist circumference >/= 80 cm and 748 (6 %) subjects were overweight but had a waist circumference /= 0.5. Of the variation in fat mass index, 85 % was explained by BMI, 76 % by waist circumference and 75 % by waist:height ratio. Our findings demonstrate that many women are differentially classified depending on which index of adiposity is used. As each index captures different aspects of size in terms of adiposity, there is the need to determine how the three indices relate to function and how they can be of use in defining risk of ill health in women
Association of assisted reproductive technology with offspring growth and adiposity from infancy to early adulthood
No full textImportance: people conceived using assisted reproductive technology (ART) make up an increasing proportion of the world's population.Objective: to investigate the association of ART conception with offspring growth and adiposity from infancy to early adulthood in a large multicohort study.Design, setting, and participants: this cohort study used a prespecified coordinated analysis across 26 European, Asia-Pacific, and North American population-based cohort studies that included people born between 1984 and 2018, with mean ages at assessment of growth and adiposity outcomes from 0.6 months to 27.4 years. Data were analyzed between November 2019 and February 2022.Exposures: conception by ART (mostly in vitro fertilization, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, and embryo transfer) vs natural conception (NC; without any medically assisted reproduction).Main outcomes and measures: the main outcomes were length / height, weight, and body mass index (BMI; calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared). Each cohort was analyzed separately with adjustment for maternal BMI, age, smoking, education, parity, and ethnicity and offspring sex and age. Results were combined in random effects meta-analysis for 13 age groups.Results: up to 158 066 offspring (4329 conceived by ART) were included in each age-group meta-analysis, with between 47.6% to 60.6% females in each cohort. Compared with offspring who were NC, offspring conceived via ART were shorter, lighter, and thinner from infancy to early adolescence, with differences largest at the youngest ages and attenuating with older child age. For example, adjusted mean differences in offspring weight were -0.27 (95% CI, -0.39 to -0.16) SD units at age younger than 3 months, -0.16 (95% CI, -0.22 to -0.09) SD units at age 17 to 23 months, -0.07 (95% CI, -0.10 to -0.04) SD units at age 6 to 9 years, and -0.02 (95% CI, -0.15 to 0.12) SD units at age 14 to 17 years. Smaller offspring size was limited to individuals conceived by fresh but not frozen embryo transfer compared with those who were NC (eg, difference in weight at age 4 to 5 years was -0.14 [95% CI, -0.20 to -0.07] SD units for fresh embryo transfer vs NC and 0.00 [95% CI, -0.15 to 0.15] SD units for frozen embryo transfer vs NC). More marked differences were seen for body fat measurements, and there was imprecise evidence that offspring conceived by ART developed greater adiposity by early adulthood (eg, ART vs NC difference in fat mass index at age older than 17 years: 0.23 [95% CI, -0.04 to 0.50] SD units).Conclusions and relevance: these findings suggest that people conceiving or conceived by ART can be reassured that differences in early growth and adiposity are small and no longer evident by late adolescence.</p
Science for health literacy: it’s never been so important
No full textLifelab is a science-based approach tochanging teenagers’ health-related attitudes and behaviour
What do babies eat: evaluation of a food frequency questionnaire to assess the diets of infants aged twelve months.
No full textObjective: to evaluate the relative validity of an FFQ for assessing nutrient intakes
in 12-month-old infants.
Design and setting: the FFQ was developed to assess the diets of infants born to
women in the Southampton Women’s Survey (SWS), a population-based survey
of young women and their offspring. The energy and nutrient intakes obtained
from an interviewer-administered FFQ were compared with those obtained from
4 d weighed diaries (WD).
Subjects and methods: a sub-sample of fifty infants (aged 1 year) from the SWS
had their diets assessed by both methods. The FFQ recorded the frequencies and
amounts of foods and drinks consumed by the infants over the previous 28 d; milk
consumption was recorded separately. The WD recorded the weights of all foods
and drinks consumed by the infants on 4 d following the FFQ completion.
Results: the Spearman rank correlation coefficients for intakes of energy, macronutrients
and eighteen micronutrients, determined by the two methods, ranged
from r50?25 to 0?66. Bland–Altman statistics showed that mean differences
between methods were in the range 15% to 160% except for vitamin D
(1106 %). Differences in micronutrient intake were partly explained by changes
in patterns of milk consumption between the two assessments.
Conclusion: although there were differences in absolute energy and nutrient
intakes between methods, there was reasonable agreement in the ranking of
intakes. The FFQ is a useful tool for assessing energy and nutrient intakes of
healthy infants aged around 12 month
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