Journal of epidemiology and community health
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J Epidemiol Community Health · Feb 2011
Social disparities in periodontitis among US adults: the effect of allostatic load.
Periodontitis has been shown to be associated with allostatic load, a measure of physiological instability across biological systems from cumulative or repeated adaptation to stressors. Minority racial/ethnic and low socioeconomic groups tend to have higher prevalence of periodontitis and are more likely to be exposed to stress. The association between periodontitis and allostatic load and whether this association differed by race/ethnicity, education, income and age among US adults were examined. ⋯ These data suggest that stress may be associated with periodontitis in the USA, with Mexican Americans exhibiting the strongest association. Furthermore, this group may lack appropriate coping responses to process chronic stressors that other groups may have historically been conditioned to handle. More research is needed to understand allostatic load in Mexican Americans and its influence on periodontitis.
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J Epidemiol Community Health · Nov 2010
A new method of prenatal alcohol classification accounting for dose, pattern and timing of exposure: improving our ability to examine fetal effects from low to moderate alcohol.
When examining the association between prenatal alcohol exposure and fetal effects, the timing and intensity of exposure have been ignored in epidemiological studies. The effect of using dose, pattern and timing of consumption ("composite" method) was investigated in this study, to examine the association between prenatal alcohol exposure and fetal effects. ⋯ The effect of moderate and binge levels of exposure was only evident with the composite method; anxiety/depression following first-trimester moderate exposure (OR 2.24, 95% CI 1.16 to 4.34), and following late pregnancy moderate (aggressive behaviour OR 1.93, 95% CI 0.91 to 4.09) and binge (language delay OR 3.00, 95% CI 0.90 to 9.93) exposures. Results for heavy levels of exposure were similar with each method. The estimates for late pregnancy were imprecise due to small numbers. Conclusion The composite method of classification more closely reflects real-life drinking patterns and better discriminates maternal drinking than the other methods, particularly low, moderate and binge levels.
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J Epidemiol Community Health · Oct 2010
Neighbourhood socioeconomic status and biological 'wear and tear' in a nationally representative sample of US adults.
To assess whether neighbourhood socioeconomic status (NSES) is independently associated with disparities in biological 'wear and tear' measured by allostatic load in a nationally representative sample of US adults. ⋯ Living in a lower NSES in the USA is associated with significantly greater biological wear and tear as measured by the allostatic load, and this relationship is independent of individual SES characteristics. Our findings show that where one lives is independently associated with allostatic load, thereby suggesting that policies that improve NSES may also yield health returns.