American journal of epidemiology
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The relation between anesthetic gas exposure and spontaneous abortion remains unresolved. We examined the effect of nitrous oxide on spontaneous abortion among female dental assistants. Questionnaires were sent to 7,000 dental assistants aged 18-39 years who were registered in California in 1987; 4,856 (69%) responded. ⋯ An elevation in risk of spontaneous abortion was seen among women who worked with nitrous oxide for 3 or more hours per week in offices not using scavenging equipment (relative risk = 2.6, 95% confidence interval 1.3-5.0, adjusted for age, smoking, and number of amalgams prepared per week), but not among those using nitrous oxide in offices with scavenging equipment. This relation changed little when analyses were restricted to confirmed pregnancies or examined for several types of potential bias. Scavenging equipment appears to be important in protecting the reproductive health of women working with nitrous oxide.
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The metropolitan area of Mexico City, Mexico, has serious air pollution problems. Although air contaminants may contribute to clinical asthma, there are at present no data on the relation between air pollution exposure and childhood asthma in Mexico City. The authors reviewed data on emergency visits from January to June 1990 at one major pediatric hospital in Mexico City. ⋯ After adjustment for potential confounding factors, the multivariate regression model predicted that an increase of 50 ppb in the 1-hour maximum ozone level would lead to a 43% increase in the number of emergency visits for asthma on the following day. Exposure to high ozone levels (> 110 ppb) for 2 consecutive days increased the number of asthma-related emergency visits by 68 percent. The results of this study suggest that ozone exposure is positively associated with the number of children's emergency visits for asthma in Mexico City.
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Comment Letter
Re: "Validation studies using an alloyed gold standard".
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Left-handedness has been associated with decreased longevity, although this finding is controversial and not universal. The authors prospectively studied 39,691 women aged 55-69 years from the Iowa Women's Health Study through 5 years of mortality follow-up. No increase in mortality risk was found for left-handed women as compared with right-handed women (age-adjusted hazard ratio 1.10, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.86-1.39) or for ambidextrous women (age-adjusted hazard ratio 1.05, 95% CI 0.73-1.49). ⋯ Further analysis by cause-specific mortality (breast cancer, all other cancer, and circulatory disease) showed no relation to handedness. There was no difference in the mean age at death of left-handed, right-handed, and ambidextrous women. These findings do not support an association between left-handedness and increased mortality risk.