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Objectives: We examine the association between several dimensions of parental socioeconomic status (SES) and all-cause and cause-specific mortality among children and youth (ages 1–24) in the United States. Methods: We use Cox proportional hazard models to estimate all-cause and cause-specific mortality risk based on data from the 1998 to 2015 National Health Interview Survey-Linked Mortality Files (NHIS-LMFs), restricted to children and youth ages 1–17 at the time of survey followed through age 24, or the end of the follow-up period in 2015 (N = 377,252). Results: Children and youth in families with lower levels of mother's education, father's education, and/or family income-to-needs ratio exhibit significantly higher all-cause mortality risk compared with children and youth living in higher SES families. For example, compared to children and youth living with mothers who earned college degrees, those living with mothers who have not graduated high school experience 40% higher risk of early life mortality over the follow-up period, due in part to higher mortality risks of unintentional injuries and homicides. Similarly, children/youth whose fathers did not graduate high school experience a 41% higher risk of dying before age 25 compared to those with fathers who completed college. Conclusions: Today's children and youth experience clear disparities in mortality risk across several dimensions of parental SES. As the U.S. continues to lag behind other high-income countries in health and mortality, more attention and resources should be devoted to improving children's health and well-being, including the family and household contexts in which American children live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We examine the importance of early life displacement and nutrition on hypertension (HTN) and diabetes in older Colombian adults (60+ years) exposed to rapid demographic, epidemiological, and nutritional transitions, and armed conflict. We compare early life nutritional status and adult health in other middle- and high-income countries. Method: In Colombia (Survey of Health, Wellbeing and Aging [SABE]-Bogotá), we estimate the effects of early life conditions (displacement due to armed conflict and violence, hunger, low height, and not born in the capital city) and obesity on adult health; we compare the effects of low height on adult health in Mexico, South Africa (Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health [SAGE]), the United States, and England (Health and Retirement Study [HRS], English Longitudinal Study of Ageing [ELSA]). Results: Early life displacement, early poor nutrition, and adult obesity increase the risk of HTN and diabetes in Colombia. Being short is most detrimental for HTN in Colombian males. Discussion: Colombian data provide new evidence into how early life conditions and adult obesity contribute to older adult health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: An association between smoking and breast cancer is unresolved, although a higher risk from exposure during windows of susceptibility has been proposed. The objective of this prospective study was to evaluate the association between tobacco smoke and breast cancer with a focus on timing of exposure, especially during early life.Methods: Sister study participants (n = 50,884) aged 35-74 were enrolled from 2003 to 2009. Women in the United States and Puerto Rico were eligible if they were breast cancer-free but had a sister with breast cancer. Participants completed questionnaires on smoking and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure. Cox regression was used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for breast cancer risk.Results: During follow-up (mean = 6.4 years), 1,843 invasive breast cancers were diagnosed. Neither active smoking nor adult ETS was associated with breast cancer risk. However, never smoking women exposed to ETS throughout their childhood had a 17% higher risk of breast cancer (95% CI 1.00-1.36) relative to those with no exposure. In utero ETS exposure was also associated with breast cancer (HR = 1.16, 95% CI 1.01-1.32) and the HR was most elevated for women born in earlier birth cohorts (<1940, HR = 1.44, 95% CI 1.02-2.02; 1940-1949, HR = 1.28, 95% CI 1.01-1.62).Conclusion: In utero ETS and ETS exposure during childhood and adolescence were associated with increased risk of breast cancer and associations varied by birth cohort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The choice and definition of a comparison group in alcohol-related health studies remains a prominent issue in alcohol epidemiology due to potential biases in the risk estimates. The most commonly used comparison group has been current abstainers; however, this includes former drinkers who may have quit drinking due to health problems. Lifetime abstention could be the best option, but measurement issues, selection biases due to health and other risk factors, and small numbers in populations are important concerns. This study examines characteristics of lifetime abstention and occasional drinking that are relevant for alcohol-related health studies. Methods This study used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort of 14 to 21 year olds followed through 2012 ( n = 7,515). Definitions of abstinence and occasional drinking were constructed based on multiple measurements. Descriptive analyses were used to compare the definitions, and in further analysis, lifetime abstainers ( n = 718) and lifetime minimal drinkers ( n = 1,027) were compared with drinkers across demographics and early-life characteristics (i.e., religion, poverty, parental education, and family alcohol problems) in logistic regression models. Results Using a strict measurement of zero drinks from adolescence to the 50s, only 1.7% of the sample was defined as lifetime abstainer compared to a broader definition allowing a total of 1 drink over the lifetime that included 9.5% and to lifetime minimal drinking (a total of 3 drinks or less a month), which accounted for 13.7%. Factors significantly associated with lifetime abstention and lifetime minimal drinking included religion, poverty, having no family alcohol problems, Hispanic ethnicity, foreign-born, and female gender. Importantly, work-related health limitations in early life were significantly associated, but not childhood physical and mental health problems. Conclusions Alcohol-related health studies should utilize lifetime classifications of drinkers and abstainers, and, in doing so, should account for early-life socioeconomic adversity and childhood health factors or consider these as unmeasured confounders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An association between antibiotic use in early life and asthma in childhood has been reported in five retrospective studies and one longitudinal study. To examine the relation between the use of oral antibiotics in the first year of life and asthma in early childhood. Longitudinal follow-up of 4408 children enrolled in a health maintenance organization (HMO) from birth to the age of 5 years. After adjusting for sex and illnesses of the lower respiratory tract (LRIs), we found a significant association between antibiotic use in the first year of life and asthma between the ages of 1 and 2 years (odds ratio (OR) for 1–2 vs. no courses of antibiotics=1.9, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.3–2.7; OR for 3–4 vs. no courses of antibiotics=1.6, 95% CI=1.1–2.4; OR for at least 5 vs. no courses of antibiotics=2.1, 95% CI=1.5–3.2). After adjustment for sex and LRIs in the first year of life, there was no significant association between antibiotic use in the first year of life and asthma that was initially diagnosed between the ages of 2 and 5 years and that persisted up to the age of 5 years (OR for 1–2 vs. no courses of antibiotics=1.1, 95% CI=0.8–1.4; OR for 3–4 vs. no courses of antibiotics=1.3, 95% CI=0.9–1.8; OR for at least 5 vs. no courses of antibiotics=1.0, 95% CI=0.7–1.4). Our findings do not support the hypothesis that antibiotic use in early life is associated with the subsequent development of asthma in childhood but rather suggest that frequent antibiotic use in early life is more common among asthmatic children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Whether birth weight and early-life growth are associated with age at menopause has not been resolved., Methods: We conducted a prospective study in two U.S. birth cohorts to investigate the relation of weight at birth and weight and growth trajectory through age 4 years to menstrual status among 1001 women ages 39-49 years. We used logistic regression models with GEE., Results: Women who weighed more at birth and at one year were less likely to have experienced the menopausal transition or natural menopause by age 39-49 years (odds ratio(OR) = 0.50, 95% confidence interval(CI) = 0.32, 0.77 and OR = 0.82, 95%CI = 0.68, 0.99 per kilogram increase at birth and age one, respectively)., Conclusions: Women who had a lighter weight at birth and women who were lighter than their peers through infancy experienced the menopausal transition or natural menopause at an earlier age., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This report summarizes a consultation meeting convened by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), on 12 September 2017 to discuss the scientific rationale for selectively testing relevant HIV vaccine candidates in early life that are designed to initiate immune responses for lifelong protective immunity. The urgent need to develop interventions providing durable protective immunity to HIV before sexual debut coupled with the practicality of infant vaccine schedules supports optimizing infant HIV vaccines as a high priority. The panelists discussed the unique opportunities and challenges of testing candidate HIV vaccines in the context of distinct early-life immunity. Key developments providing rationale and grounds for cautious optimism regarding evaluation of early-life HIV vaccines include recent studies of early-life immune ontogeny, studies of HIV-infected infants demonstrating relatively rapid generation of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs), discovery of novel adjuvants active in early life, and cutting-edge sample-sparing systems biology and immunologic assays promising deep insight into vaccine action in infants. Multidisciplinary efforts toward the goal of an infant HIV vaccine are under way and should be nurtured and amplified. IMPORTANCE Young adults represent one of the highest-risk groups for new HIV infections and the only group in which morbidity continues to increase. Therefore, an HIV vaccine to prevent HIV acquisition in adolescence is a top priority. The introduction of any vaccine during adolescence is challenging. This meeting discussed the opportunities and challenges of testing HIV vaccine candidates in the context of the infant immune system given recent advances in our knowledge of immune ontogeny and adjuvant design and studies demonstrating that HIV-infected infants generate broadly neutralizing antibodies, a main target of HIV vaccines, more rapidly than adults. Considering the global success of pediatric vaccines, the concept of an HIV vaccine introduced in early life holds merit and warrants testing., (Copyright © 2019 Singh et al.)

Farming and pesticide exposure may influence risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA); the role of early-life pesticide exposure is unknown. The Sister Study includes a US national cohort of women aged 35-74 years (enrolled 2004-2009); we examined childhood pesticide exposure in women in this cohort with adult-onset RA. Cases (n = 424) were compared with 48,919 noncases. Data included pesticide use at the longest childhood residence through age 14 years, farm residence of at least 12 months with agricultural pesticide exposure through age 18 years, and maternal farm experience. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were adjusted for age, race or ethnicity, education, smoking, and childhood socioeconomic factors. Cases with RA reported more frequent and direct (personal) residential pesticide use in childhood (for infrequent/indirect pesticide use, odds ratio (OR) = 1.1; for frequent/direct use, OR = 1.8; P for trend = 0.013). Compared with women without residential farm history, odds of having RA increased for those reporting a childhood-only farm residence with personal exposure to pesticides used on crops (OR = 1.8, 95% confidence interval: 1.1, 2.9) or livestock (OR = 2.0, 95% confidence interval: 1.2, 3.3). Our findings suggest adult-onset RA may be related to childhood exposure to residential and agricultural pesticides, and support further investigations of lifetime pesticide use in RA., (Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 2017. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.)

Grandmaternal education may be related to grandchild birth weight (GBW) through maternal early-life development; however, conventional regression models may be endogenously confounded. Alternative models employing explicit structural assumptions may provide incrementally clearer evidence. We used data from the US National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (1995-2009; 1,681 mother-child pairs) to estimate "direct effects" of grandmaternal educational level (less than high school, high school diploma or equivalent, or college degree) at the time of the mother's birth on GBW, adjusted for maternal life-course factors: maltreatment as a child, education and income as an adult, prepregnancy overweight, and prenatal smoking. Using conventional and marginal structural model (MSM) approaches, we estimated 54-g (95% confidence interval: -14.0, 122.1) and 87-g (95% confidence interval: 10.9, 162.5) higher GBWs per increase in educational level, respectively. The MSM allowed simultaneous mediation by and adjustment for prepregnancy overweight. Estimates were insensitive to alternate structural assumptions and mediator parameterizations. Bias analysis suggested that a single unmeasured confounder would have to have a strong influence on GBW (approximately 150 g) or be greatly imbalanced across exposure groups (approximately 25%) to completely explain the findings. Coupling an MSM with sensitivity analyses provides some evidence that maternal early-life socioeconomic environment is directly associated with offspring birth weight., (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)