Publications by authors named "Gerstein E"

Objective: Development of postpartum depressive symptoms (PDS) is influenced by many social determinants of health, including income, discrimination, and other stressful life experiences. Early recognition of PDS is essential to reduce its long-term impact on mothers and their children, but postpartum checkups are highly underutilized. This study examined how stressful life experiences and race-based discrimination influence PDS development and whether or not a women has a postpartum checkup.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Awareness of autism is increasing, but social factors like race, sex, and location affect diagnosis age and frequency, revealing potential biases in the healthcare system.
  • - A study of 13,850 Missouri children diagnosed with autism showed that being White and having previous diagnoses correlated with older ages of autism diagnosis, while boys had a higher likelihood of ADHD.
  • - The research suggests that living in urban areas provides better access to healthcare, resulting in a trend of later autism diagnoses among White children, and highlights the need for further investigation into the barriers and impacts of previous diagnoses.
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Background: We investigated dyspnea; its associated risk factors; and its impact on health care utilization, quality of life, and work productivity in adults with undiagnosed respiratory symptoms.

Research Question: What is the impact of dyspnea in adults with undiagnosed respiratory symptoms?

Study Design And Methods: This population-based study included 2,857 adults who were experiencing respiratory symptoms. These individuals had not been previously diagnosed with any lung conditions and were recruited from 17 Canadian centers using random digit dialing.

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Objective: To investigate whether parenting or neonatal brain volumes mediate associations between prenatal social disadvantage (PSD) and cognitive/language abilities and whether these mechanisms vary by level of disadvantage.

Study Design: Pregnant women were recruited prospectively from obstetric clinics in St Louis, Missouri. PSD encompassed access to social (eg, education) and material (eg, income to needs, health insurance, area deprivation, and nutrition) resources during pregnancy.

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  • The study investigates a method to activate the immune response in cancer cells, particularly in "cold" tumors, by targeting a protein called DHX9 which suppresses the presence of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA).
  • By depleting DHX9 in small cell lung cancer (SCLC) cells, researchers observed an increase in cytoplasmic dsRNA and R-loops, leading to enhanced innate immunity and reduced tumor growth.
  • The findings suggest that targeting DHX9 could turn tumors more responsive to immunotherapy, offering a new strategy for treating SCLC and other tumors characterized by genomic instability.
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Objective: Brief, reliable, and cost-effective methods to assess parenting are critical for advancing parenting research.

Design: We adapted the Three Bags task and Parent Child Interaction Rating System (PCIRS) for rating online visits with 219 parent-child dyads (White, = 104 [47.5%], Black, = 115 [52.

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Objective: Prenatal exposure to neighborhood crime has been associated with weaker neonatal frontolimbic connectivity; however, associations with early childhood behavior remain unclear. We hypothesized that living in a high-crime neighborhood would be related to higher externalizing symptoms at age 1 and 2 years, over and above other adversities, and that neonatal frontolimbic connectivity and observed parenting behaviors at 1 year would mediate this relationship.

Method: Participants included 399 pregnant women, recruited as part of the Early Life Adversity, Biological Embedding, and Risk for Developmental Precursors of Mental Disorders (eLABE) study.

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Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the impact of household food insecurity (HFI) over time on behavioral and developmental health in early childhood while considering the impact of timing/persistence of HFI and potential differences among racially or ethnically minoritized children.

Methods: Families from the Early Head Start Family and Child Experiences Study (N = 760) were followed longitudinally until age 3 years. Caregiver interview data were collected on HFI, problem behaviors (PBs), delays in development (DD), and sociodemographic information.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has been linked to increased risk for perinatal anxiety and depression among parents, as well as negative consequences for child development. Less is known about how worries arising from the pandemic during pregnancy are related to later child development, nor if resilience factors buffer negative consequences. The current study addresses this question in a prospective longitudinal design.

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A significant proportion of individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma remain undiagnosed. The objective of this study was to evaluate symptoms, quality of life, healthcare use, and work productivity in subjects with undiagnosed COPD or asthma compared with those previously diagnosed, as well as healthy control subjects. This multicenter population-based case-finding study randomly recruited adults with respiratory symptoms who had no previous history of diagnosed lung disease from 17 Canadian centers using random digit dialing.

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Objective: To examine profiles of distress of mothers of preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and relate profiles to maternal and child outcomes at child age 5 years.

Method: A racially and economically diverse sample of mothers (n = 94; 39% African American, 52% White) of preterm infants (≤30 weeks of gestation) completed validated questionnaires assessing depression, anxiety (state and trait), NICU stress, and life stress at NICU discharge of their infant. Mothers reported on their own and their children's symptomatology at child age 5.

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Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic increased perinatal anxiety and depression, negatively impacting child development, but the specific relationship between pandemic worries during pregnancy and later child outcomes is less understood.
  • A study involving 184 pregnant participants gathered data through online surveys during pregnancy and early postpartum, revealing that higher worries related to the pandemic were linked to lower socioemotional development in children at 12 months but did not affect general developmental milestones.
  • The study found that parents' ability to regulate their emotions in the early postpartum period acted as a buffer, suggesting that improving parental resilience through emotion regulation could help mitigate negative effects on child development.
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Background: The aim of this investigation was to examine developmental, sociodemographic and familial factors associated with parent reported access to an evaluation in an Early Head Start sample. Children with developmental disabilities often require evaluations to access early interventions, which can improve their long-term outcomes.

Methods: This study (n = 191) examined how developmental, sociodemographic and parent factors at age 2 were associated with parent reporting the child being evaluated by age 3.

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Different types of sexual victimization are associated with different outcomes; for example, on average, physically forced sex is associated with worse psychological outcomes than verbally coerced sex. This study evaluated outcomes associated with sexual victimization as a function of sexual act and aggressive tactic, expanding upon the acts and tactics examined in prior studies. Participants who had experienced sexual victimization ( = 402) completed a survey about their most upsetting victimization experience, identifying the sexual act(s) and aggressive tactic(s) that occurred.

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Although the prevalence of autism has been rising in recent years, disparities in diagnosis still remain. Female and Black populations in the United States are diagnosed later, are more likely to have an intellectual disability, and are excluded from research as well as services designed for autistic individuals. Autistic Black girls are effectively invisible in the current scientific literature.

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Latinx dual language learners (DLLs) make up a large, growing population in the United States, yet little is known about their early childhood experiences, particularly regarding parenting, socioeconomic risk, and social emotional development (SED). This prospective, longitudinal study examined whether parental intrusiveness, parental stress, and parental warmth function differently in Latinx DLL families as compared to White monolingual (ML) families while controlling for relevant sociodemographic factors. Data were drawn from the Early Head Start (EHS) family and child experiences study, where White ML ( = 143) and Latinx DLL ( = 247) children and families were assessed at ages 2 and 3.

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Poverty increases the risk of poorer executive function (EF) in children born full-term (FT). Stressors associated with poverty, including variability in parenting behavior, may explain links between poverty and poorer EF, but this remains unclear for children born very preterm (VPT). We examine socioeconomic and parental psychosocial adversity on parenting behavior, and whether these factors independently or jointly influence EF in children born VPT.

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Intrusive parenting has been traditionally considered a negative parenting style and includes actions that are overly directive and controlling of children's behavior. However, current research aims to contextualize this parenting behavior. This study examined the relation between intrusive parenting and early childhood behavior problems or emotion regulation, as well as the moderating role of race/ethnicity and developmental delay.

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The vocal repertoire for the Florida manatee is quantitatively categorized from a sample of 1114 calls recorded from 3 different manatee habitats in Florida. First, manatee vocalizations were categorized into five call categories based on visual inspection of spectrograms and following descriptions provided in previous studies. Second, based on measurements of 17 acoustic parameters, the subjective classification scheme was validated using classification and regression trees (CARTs) and model-based cluster analysis paired with silhouette coefficients.

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Antillean manatees produce vocalizations reported to be important for communication, but their vocal behavior throughout their geographic range is poorly understood. A SoundTrap recorder (sample rates: 288/576 kHz) was deployed in Belize to record vocalizations of wild manatees in a seagrass channel and of a young rehabilitated and released manatee in a shallow lagoon. Spectral analysis revealed broadband vocalizations with frequencies up to 150 kHz and a high proportion of calls with ultrasonic components.

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This study tests a group-based secular contemplative practice intervention, Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT), with parents of young children. We report on a randomized controlled preliminary efficacy study. Certified teachers administered CBCT for 20 hr across 8 to 10 weeks in two cohorts of parents with infants and young children.

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Background: Very preterm (VPT; <30 weeks gestation) children are a heterogeneous group, yet the co-occurrence of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental impairments remains unclear. Moreover, the clinical and socio-environmental factors that promote resilient developmental outcomes among VPT children are poorly understood.

Methods: One hundred and twenty five children (85 VPT and 40 full-term) underwent neurodevelopmental evaluation at age 5-years.

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Parenting stress and children's behavior problems have frequently been linked, with bidirectional relations spanning from early childhood through adolescence. However, this association has not been well studied in infancy or toddlerhood, and prospective mediators have not been thoroughly explored. This prospective, longitudinal study utilized two transactional models to examine bidirectional relations between parenting stress and children's behavior problems and explore perceived family conflict and parental supportiveness as potential mediators.

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Objective: Previous studies suggest that maternal postpartum mental health issues may have an impact on parenting and child development in preterm infants, but have often not measured symptomatology in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) or followed families through early childhood. This study examines how maternal depressive symptoms and stress in the NICU are related to parenting behaviors at age 5 years, in mothers of children born very preterm (at ≤30 weeks' gestation).

Method: This longitudinal study followed a diverse sample of 74 very preterm children and their mothers.

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