Stacy, Shaina L.
(2015)
Epidemiological investigation of infant health and environmental exposures.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
The impact of “place” on health is a classical and key element of epidemiology. Recent advances in geographic information systems have facilitated the use of spatial methods to investigate public health issues. Such approaches are particularly helpful when a public health phenomenon is relatively new and adequate environmental exposure information is lacking. The overarching objective of the present epidemiological investigation is to use spatial methods to explore relationships between several infant and children’s health outcomes and potential environmental exposures. The public health significance of this work is to identify possible sources of harmful exposures that may motivate further research, primary prevention efforts, and eventually policies to further limit exposures in these sensitive populations. It is well known that the embryo/fetus is particularly sensitive to the effects of environmental agents. Early life exposures are of public health significance since they may harm infant health and also have further adverse consequences in childhood and adulthood. The present work encompasses two relatively new but growing areas of interest related to fetal, infant, and children’s health: 1) unconventional natural gas development and adverse birth outcomes, and 2) sources of air toxics and childhood autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Geographic information systems are used to spatially link health outcomes, including birth weight, small for gestational age, preterm birth, and ASD, with nearby sources or with aggregated (e.g., census tract-level) estimates of exposure. Logistic regression is conducted to determine associations between risk for each of the above health effects and the exposures of interest, adjusting for other sociodemographic and personal risk factors. Overall, results indicate that environmental factors have a small but important role to play in the health of infants and children, even after accounting for other potentially confounding factors. Since spatial surrogates for exposure are the primary focus of this investigation, future work will benefit from improved individual exposure assessment and a prospective study design to confirm and further explain these associations.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
29 June 2015 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
17 April 2015 |
| Approval Date: |
29 June 2015 |
| Submission Date: |
3 April 2015 |
| Access Restriction: |
3 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 3 years. |
| Number of Pages: |
131 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
School of Public Health > Environmental and Occupational Health |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
infant health, epidemiology, public health, environmental health, geographic information systems, autism spectrum disorder, unconventional natural gas development |
| Date Deposited: |
29 Jun 2015 16:16 |
| Last Modified: |
01 May 2018 05:15 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/24345 |
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