News
Edward Ruiz-Narváez elected to National Academy of Sciences of Costa Rica
Edward Ruiz-Narváez, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Costa Rica.
New model better predicts breast cancer risk in African American women
Researchers from Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center have developed a breast cancer risk prediction model for African-American women that found greater accuracy in predicting risk for the disease. The use of this model could result in increased eligibility of African Americans in breast cancer prevention trials.
Birth weight and diabetes
African-Americans born at low birth weight are at an increased risk for Type 2 diabetes later in life, a new study has found.
Researchers at Boston University School of Public Health followed more than 21,000 women ages 21 to 69 who were enrolled in a large study of African-American women’s health for 16 years. Some 2,388 of them developed Type 2 diabetes.
Increased risk of birth defects from opioid use
Although potential risks to a developing fetus remain largely unknown, doctors are prescribing opioid painkillers to pregnant women in startling numbers. A recent study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology shows a staggering 23 percent of 1.1 million pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid nationally filled an opioid, or narcotic, prescription in 2007—up from 18.5 percent in 2000. That is the largest usage rate of opioid prescriptions among pregnant women to date.
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Depression linked to asthma onset in African American women
Depression and asthma—two of the most vexing public health issues in the United States—were once thought to have no connection.
But a new study by School of Public Health researchers at the Slone Epidemiology Center has found evidence that depressive symptoms may be linked to the development of adult-onset asthma in African American women. The likely pathway: stress.
Why medical research often ignores women
The picture remains tacked to Julie Palmer’s office wall: a female doctor and colleague from UCLA who died last year, age only 50, from lung cancer.
“I was so sad when I learned about it,” says Palmer (SPH’85), a School of Public Health professor of epidemiology. “She was a Renaissance woman. She played varsity basketball at Northwestern—she was six feet tall or something like that. She wrote poetry” in between medicine and research. “A wonderful woman doing groundbreaking work out there in LA. Never smoked.”
The photo serves as a stark reminder to Palmer of a troubling fact: nonsmoking women are far more likely to get lung cancer than nonsmoking men, she says, yet lung cancer research frequently doesn’t break down data according to gender-specific factors, as evidenced by a recent study by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and George Washington University. In fact, the study found medical research in many areas, including cardiovascular disease (which kills more women than men), often includes few women subjects, or else doesn’t report results by gender. Among the report’s findings: only one third of subjects in cardiovascular clinical trials are female, and while depression is more prevalent in women than men, brain studies in male animals outnumber those in female animals five to one.
Study finds experiences of racism associated with weight gain in African American women
A recent analysis conducted by investigators from the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University has found that frequent experiences of racism were associated with a higher risk of obesity among African American women.
Internet-based study aims to help infertile couples
Infertility is among the most painful problems a couple can face, with emotional repercussions that can last for years—or a lifetime. The causes are often hard to pinpoint and it can be hard to treat.
Do women who take antidepressants have a harder time getting pregnant? Do men who carry their cell phones in their pants’ pockets have an increased risk of infertility?
Those are among the questions that researchers from the School of Public Health and the Slone Epidemiology Center are probing in the recently launched PRESTO (Pregnancy Study Online) project—the largest internet-based study of fertility in the United States.
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Study finds decreased life expectancy for multiple sclerosis patients
The first large scale study in the U.S. on the mortality of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has been published and provides new information about the life expectancy of people with the disease. The study appears in the journal Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders.
Researchers from the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University took the first large scale study in the United States regarding mortality and a chronic disease of the central nervous system, multiple sclerosis (MS). At this time, there are roughly 250,000 to 350,000 patients living with MS in the United States. That's approximately one in 1,000, according to background information from the study. As the degenerative phase affects the majority of patients, despite disease modifying-agents to reduce the activity of the health issue, many must face the possibility of a decreased life span due to the health problem.
Depressive symptoms linked to adult-onset asthma in African-American women
According to a new study from the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University, African-American women who reported high levels of depressive symptoms had a greater likelihood of adult-onset asthma compared to women who reported fewer depressive symptoms.