Current Epidemiology Reports

There are >1.9 million survivors of adolescent and young adult cancers (AYA, diagnosed at ages 15-39) living in the U.S. today. Epidemiologic studies to address the cancer burden in this group have been a relatively recent focus of the research community. In this article, we discuss approaches and data resources for cancer epidemiology and health services research in the AYA population. We consider research that uses data from cancer registries, vital records, healthcare utilization, and surveys, and the accompanying challenges and opportunities of each...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review summarizes findings from quantitative research studies published between 2010 and 2022 providing insight on sociodemographic differences and disparities in ageism among US adults ages 50 and older. FINDINGS: Across 21 studies, disparities in ageism were more consistently found such that those who were older (57% of studies), with less education (64%), and of lower socioeconomic status (100%) reported more ageism than their counterparts...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This study aims to understand how intergenerational relationships impact minority aging in the USA. We reviewed studies published in the last 5 years that examine both familial and non-familial intergenerational relationships. RECENT FINDINGS: Intergenerational relationships can have positive and negative implications for minority aging. Minority older adults benefit most from these relationships when they increase social interaction and/or offer social support by reducing acculturative stress, providing emotional closeness, or increasing access to tangible resources...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Growing racial/ethnic diversity among America's older adults necessitates additional research specifically focused on health and well-being among aging minoritized populations. Although Black and Latinx adults in the USA tend to face worse health outcomes as they age, substantial evidence points to unexpected health patterns (e.g., the race paradox in mental health, the Latino health paradox) that challenge our understanding of health and aging among these populations...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: We review the application and limitations of two implementations of the "case-only design" in injury epidemiology with example analyses of Fatality Analysis Reporting System data. RECENT FINDINGS: The term "case-only design" covers a variety of epidemiologic designs; here, two implementations of the design are reviewed: (1) studies to uncover etiological heterogeneity and (2) studies to measure exposure effect modification. These two designs produce results that require different interpretations and rely upon different assumptions...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Injury data is frequently captured in registries that form a census of 100% of known cases that meet specified inclusion criteria. These data are routinely used in injury research with a variety of study designs. We reviewed study designs commonly used with data extracted from injury registries and evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of each design type. RECENT FINDINGS: Registry data are suited to 5 major design types: (1) Description, (2) Ecologic (with Ecologic Cohort as a particularly informative sub-type), (3) Case-control (with location-based and culpability studies as salient subtypes), (4) Case-only (including case-case and case-crossover subtypes), and (5) Outcomes...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To summarize recent research on the alcohol retail environment (sales, policies, availability) and interpersonal violence (assault, intimate partner violence, sexual assault), including methods utilized, theoretical frameworks employed, and associations by types of alcohol environmental exposure and violence. RECENT FINDINGS: Studies continue to demonstrate that reducing alcohol availability directly and indirectly lowers rates of interpersonal violence...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Population aging is occurring worldwide, particularly in developed countries such as the United States (US). However, in the US, the population is aging more rapidly in rural areas than in urban areas. Healthy aging in rural areas presents unique challenges. Understanding and addressing those challenges is essential to ensure healthy aging and promote health equity across the lifespan and all geographies. This review aims to present findings and evaluate recent literature (2019-2022) on rural aging and highlight future directions and opportunities to improve population health in rural communities...

PURPOSE OF REVIEWS: The purpose of this review was to summarize the current state of the literature on the use of "mHealth" (the use of mobile devices for health promotion) for injury prevention and control. RECENT FINDINGS: mHealth is being used to measure, predict, and prevent the full spectrum of injuries. However, most literature remains preliminary or in a pilot stage. Use of best-of-class design principles (e.g., user-centered design, theory-based development) is uncommon, and wide-scale dissemination of effective monitoring or intervention tools is rare...

Purposeof Review: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex traumatic experience that often co-occurs, or is causally linked, with other forms of structural violence and oppression. However, few IPV interventions integrate this social-ecological perspective. We examine trauma- and violence-informed care (TVIC) in the context of existing IPV interventions as an explicitly equity-oriented approach to IPV prevention and response. Recent Findings: Systematic reviews of IPV interventions along the public health prevention spectrum show mixed findings, with those with a theoretically grounded, structural approach that integrates a trauma lens more likely to show benefit...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This scoping review of reviews aimed to detail the breadth of violence research about sexual and gender minorities (SGM) in terms of the three generations of health disparities research (i.e., documenting, understanding, and reducing disparities). RECENT FINDINGS: Seventy-three reviews met inclusion criteria. Nearly 70% of the reviews for interpersonal violence and for self-directed violence were classified as first-generation studies. Critical third-generation studies were considerably scant (7% for interpersonal violence and 6% for self-directed violence)...

Purpose of the review: The goal of this review is to highlight emerging biomarker research by the key phases of the cancer continuum and outline the methodological considerations for biomarker application. Recent findings: While biomarkers have an established role in targeted therapy and to some extent, disease monitoring, their role in early detection and survivorship remains to be elucidated. With the advent of omics technology, the discovery of biomarkers has been accelerated exponentially, therefore careful consideration to ensure an unbiased study design and robust validity is crucial...

Purpose of Review: Applying text mining to suicide research holds a great deal of promise. In this manuscript, literature from 2019 to 2021 is critically reviewed for text mining projects that use electronic health records, social media data, and death records. Recent Findings: Text mining has helped identify risk factors for suicide in general and specific populations (e.g., older adults), has been combined with structured variables in EHRs to predict suicide risk, and has been used to track trends in social media suicidal discourse following population level events (e...

Purpose of Review: This review summarises epidemiological research using electronic health records (EHR) for antimicrobial stewardship. Recent Findings: EHRs enable surveillance of antibiotic utilisation and infection consultations. Prescribing for respiratory tract infections has declined in the UK following reduced consultation rates. Reductions in prescribing for skin and urinary tract infections have been less marked. Drug selection has improved and use of broad-spectrum antimicrobics reduced...

Purpose of Review: Community violence is a serious public health problem, and generational investments are being made to address it. Agent-based models (ABMs) are computational tools that can help to optimize allocation of those investments, analogous to how computer simulation models, broadly, have informed decision making in other fields, such as infectious disease control. In this review, we describe ABMs, explain their potential role in community violence research, discuss recent studies that have applied ABMs to community violence, and point to opportunities for further progress...

Purpose of review: We reviewed the exposure assessments of ambient air pollution used in studies of fertility, fecundability, and pregnancy loss. Recent findings: Comprehensive literature searches were performed in the PUBMED, Web of Science, and Scopus databases. Of 168 total studies, 45 met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. We find that 69% of fertility and pregnancy loss studies have used one-dimensional proximity models or surface monitor data, while only 35% have used the improved models, such as land-use regression models (4%), dispersion/chemical transport models (11%), or fusion models (20%)...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Environmental exposures during early stages of life may be particularly relevant for cancer etiology because of the rapid hormonal and tissue changes that occur during puberty and, in women, through first birth. We review evidence from the past five years on environmental exposures during childhood/adolescence through first birth and the risk of breast and other cancers during adulthood. RECENT FINDINGS: The studies of breast cancer (n=14) reported associations for childhood/adolescent environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), smoking initiation, pesticides, hair dye use, and living on a road with high traffic...

Purpose of Review: The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the importance of considering social determinants of health, including factors such as structural racism. This review discusses some of the evidence that triangulates on this issue, including data from hate crime statistics, social media analysis, and survey-based research. It also examines the data needs for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities. Recent Findings: The available data provides evidence that the pandemic has contributed to an increase in anti-Asian sentiment and discriminatory incidents...

Purpose of Review: Racial and socioeconomic inequities in respiratory pandemics have been consistently documented, but little official guidance exists on effective action to prevent these. We systematically reviewed quantitative evaluations of (real or simulated) interventions targeting racial and socioeconomic inequities in respiratory pandemic outcomes. Recent Findings: Our systematic search returned 10,208 records, of which 5 met inclusion criteria, including observational ( n  = 1), randomized trial ( n  = 1), and simulation ( n  = 3) studies...

Purposeof Review: This review highlights six "best practices" for cancer epidemiology coordinating centers to facilitate the success of a research consortium. Recent Findings: Evidence from emerging literature regarding the Science of Team Science suggests that coordinating centers can more effectively foster collaborative cancer epidemiology research in consortia by (1) establishing collaboration as a shared goal at the start, (2) providing scientific expertise complementary to the research sites that adapts over the course of the project, (3) enacting anti-racist and inclusive approaches in all consortium decisions and activities, (4) fostering early-stage investigator career development, (5) engaging stakeholders including cancer survivors as peers, and (6) delivering reliable logistical support and technology tools with planned process evaluation so that researchers can collaboratively focus on the science...