BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Sleep problems are frequent in young children; however, children vary in the degree to which they are affected by poor sleep quality. We investigated whether a polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene, which is linked to emotional function, is a potential moderator of the influences of sleep duration on infant temperament using longitudinal data. METHODS We exa...

BACKGROUND Children may have differing susceptibility to ambient air pollution concentrations depending on various background characteristics of the children. METHODS Using emergency department (ED) data linked with birth records from Atlanta, Georgia, we identified ED visits for asthma or wheeze among children 2 to 16 years of age from 1 January 2002 through 30 June 2010 (n = 109,758). We st...

RATIONALE There is some evidence that maternal smoking increases susceptibility to personal smoking's detrimental effects. One might question whether early life disadvantage might influence susceptibility to occupational exposure. OBJECTIVES In this cross-sectional study we investigated respiratory symptoms, asthma and self-reported chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) as related to w...