hazardous chemicals may enter the body by inhalation, ingestion, injection or dermal absorption. these exposure routes constitute the overall exposure burden on the body. most occupational exposure studies have focused on measurement of the concentration of air-borne contaminants and other possible routes of exposure are often overlooked. several studies have already highlighted the importance ...

BACKGROUND A World War II defense site at Northway, Alaska, was remediated in the 1990s, leaving complex questions regarding historic exposures to toxic waste. This article describes the context, methods, limitations and findings of the Northway Wild Food and Health Project (NWFHP). OBJECTIVE The NWFHP comprised 2 pilot studies: the Northway Wild Food Study (NWFS), which investigated contamin...

Many existing cohorts with longitudinal data on environmental exposures, occupational history, lifestyle/ behavioral characteristics, and health outcomes have collected genetic data in recent years. In this paper, we consider the problem of modeling gene-gene and gene-environment interactions with repeated measures data on a quantitative trait. We review possibilities of using classical models ...

The goal of asthma treatment is to obtain clinical control and reduce future risks to the patient. However, to date there is limited evidence on how to monitor patients with asthma. Childhood asthma introduces specific challenges in terms of deciding what, when, how often, by whom and in whom different assessments of asthma should be performed. The age of the child, the fluctuating course of as...

The case-only study is a convenient approach and provides increased statistical efficiency in detecting gene-environment interactions. The validity of a case-only study hinges on one well-recognized assumption: The susceptibility genotypes and the environmental exposures of interest are independent in the population. Otherwise, the study will be biased. The authors show that hidden stratificati...

This review provides an overview of the unique features of DNA methylation in the human placenta. We discuss the importance of understanding placental development, structure, and function in the interpretation of DNA methylation data. Examples are given of how DNA methylation is important in regulating placental-specific gene expression, including monoallelic expression and X-chromosome inactiv...

The conduct of experimental studies in humans is governed by a body of principles whose main precepts have evolved over the past few decades. Three of these provide the foundations for judging the ethical adequacy of such an experiment. One addresses the question of who receives the benefits of the research and who bears its burdens (justice). A second requires that the research maximize the po...

The incidence of breast cancer is 35% lower in Hispanic women living in the San Francisco Bay Area than in non-Hispanic White women. We have previously described a significant association between genetic ancestry and risk for breast cancer in a sample of U.S. Hispanics/Latinas. We retested the association in women residing in Mexico because of the possibility that the original finding may be co...

BACKGROUND The Japan Environment and Children's Study (JECS), known as Ecochil-Chosa in Japan, is a nationwide birth cohort study investigating the environmental factors that might affect children's health and development. We report the baseline profiles of the participating mothers, fathers, and their children. METHODS Fifteen Regional Centres located throughout Japan were responsible for re...

Increased mortality following the death of a spouse (the "widowhood effect") may be due to (1) causation, (2) bias from spousal similarity (homogamy), or (3) bias from shared environmental exposures. This article proposes new tests for bias in the widowhood effect by examining husbands, wives, and ex-wives in a longitudinal sample of over 1 million elderly Americans. If the death of an ex-wife ...