Journal article
Use of meconium in perinatal epidemiology: potential benefits and pitfalls
Annals of epidemiology, v 24(12), pp 878-881
Dec 2014
PMID: 25444889
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Meconium is a biomarker matrix that can be used to assess cumulative exposures in epidemiologic studies of prenatal risk factors. Depending on when meconium is collected, different exposure windows during pregnancy can be measured. However, little guidance exists regarding the extent to which timing of meconium collection will influence resulting effect estimates.
We performed a simulation study of prenatal tobacco smoke exposure (assessed from meconium nicotine) and birth weight. We discuss four typical meconium collection methods capturing different exposure windows and assess the biases induced by these methods.
In simulations assuming that exposure to tobacco smoke only during late gestation was of etiologic relevance to birth weight, use of a meconium collection method that captured exposure windows other than late gestation resulted in biased estimates of the true nicotine-birth weight association.
Using meconium collection methods that do not reflect an exposure window of etiologic relevance can lead to biased results and erroneous conclusions regarding the nature of prenatal exposure-outcome associations. Understanding how prenatal exposure patterns vary across the pregnancy and exposure windows of etiologic relevance is essential in determining when and how to collect meconium for use in biomarker studies of prenatal exposure.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- Use of meconium in perinatal epidemiology: potential benefits and pitfalls
- Creators
- Bo Y Park - Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Drexel University School of Public Health, Philadelphia, PA. Electronic address: byp24@drexel.eduBrian K Lee - Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Drexel University School of Public Health, Philadelphia, PA
- Publication Details
- Annals of epidemiology, v 24(12), pp 878-881
- Publisher
- Elsevier; United States
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Epidemiology and Biostatistics
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000345497100002
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84927131175
- Other Identifier
- 991014877755204721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Public, Environmental & Occupational Health