Objective: Understanding compliance with COVID-19 mitigation recommendations is critical for informing efforts to contain future infectious disease outbreaks. This study tested the hypothesis that higher levels of worry about COVID-19 illness among household caregivers would predict lower (a) levels of overall and discretionary social exposure activities and (b) rates of household SARS-CoV-2 infections.
Methods: Data were drawn from a surveillance study of households with children ( = 1913) recruited from 12 U.
Am J Respir Crit Care Med
December 2024
Rationale: Race-based estimates of pulmonary function in children could influence the evaluation of asthma in children from racial and ethnic minoritized backgrounds.
Objectives: To determine if race-neutral (GLI-Global) versus race-specific (GLI-Race-Specific) reference equations differentially impact spirometry evaluation of childhood asthma.
Methods: The analysis included 8,719 children aged 5 to <12 years from 27 cohorts across the United States grouped by parent-reported race and ethnicity.
Background: Elevated blood or tissue eosinophils are considered to characterize type 2 inflammation in children with asthma and are associated with increased exacerbation rates and worse asthma control. Dupilumab, a human monoclonal antibody that blocks type 2 inflammatory drivers IL-4 and IL-13, reduced severe exacerbation rates and improved lung function vs placebo in children aged 6-11 years with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe asthma in the phase 3 LIBERTY ASTHMA VOYAGE study (NCT02948959).
Objective: This post hoc analysis assessed dupilumab efficacy and safety in children from VOYAGE with moderate-to-severe asthma and ≥500 and <1500 blood eosinophils/μL at baseline.
Background: The substantial increase in smartphone ownership has led to a rise in mobile health (mHealth) app use. Developing tailored features through mHealth apps creates a pathway to address the health care needs of pediatric patients with cancer and their families who have complex care needs. However, few apps are designed specifically to integrate with pediatric cancer care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Depemokimab is an ultra-long-acting biologic therapy with enhanced binding affinity for interleukin-5 that may enable effective 6-month dosing intervals.
Methods: In these phase 3A, randomized, placebo-controlled replicate trials, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of depemokimab in patients with severe asthma and an eosinophilic phenotype characterized by a high eosinophil count (≥300 cells per microliter in the previous 12 months or ≥150 cells per microliter at screening) and a history of exacerbations despite the receipt of medium- or high-dose inhaled glucocorticoids. Patients were randomly assigned in a 2:1 ratio to receive either depemokimab (at a dose of 100 mg subcutaneously) or placebo at weeks 0 and 26, plus standard care.
Objectives: Our study aimed to explore the impact of COVID-19 infection on pregnancy outcomes, accounting for the progression of variants, vaccines, and treatment modalities.
Study Design: We performed a prospective longitudinal cohort study at two urban tertiary centers enrolling patients with a confirmed intrauterine singleton pregnancy from December 23, 2020 to July 18, 2022. Patients were evaluated for SARS-CoV-2 infection at enrollment and every trimester using serum antibody testing.
Background: Viral wheezing is an important risk factor for asthma, which comprises several respiratory phenotypes. We sought to understand if the etiology of early-life wheezing illnesses relates to childhood respiratory and asthma phenotypes.
Methods: Data were collected prospectively on 429 children in the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA) birth cohort study through age 10 years.
Background: The discriminatory and racist policy of historical redlining in the United States during the 1930s played a role in perpetuating contemporary environmental health disparities.
Objective: Our objectives were to determine associations between home and school pollutant exposure (fine particulate matter [PM], NO) and respiratory outcomes (Composite Asthma Severity Index, lung function) among school-aged children with asthma and examine whether associations differed between children who resided and/or attended school in historically redlined compared to non-redlined neighborhoods.
Methods: Children ages 6 to 17 with moderate-to-severe asthma (N = 240) from 9 US cities were included.
Many questions in biology benefit greatly from the use of a variety of model systems. High-throughput sequencing methods have been a triumph in the democratization of diverse model systems. They allow for the economical sequencing of an entire genome or transcriptome of interest, and with technical variations can even provide insight into genome organization and the expression and regulation of genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Allergy Clin Immunol Pract
September 2024
Increased understanding of the underlying pathophysiology has highlighted the heterogeneity of asthma and identified that most children with asthma have type 2 inflammation with elevated biomarkers, such as blood eosinophils and/or fractional exhaled nitric oxide. Although in the past most of these children may have been categorized as having allergic asthma, identifying the type 2 inflammatory phenotype provides a mechanism to explain both allergic and non-allergic triggers in pediatric patients with asthma. Most children achieve control with low to medium doses of inhaled corticosteroids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Epidemiol
October 2024
Objective: To understand views of staff in relation to attitudes, enablers, and barriers to implementation of environmentally sustainable surgery in operating theatres. This will ultimately help in the goal of successfully implementing more sustainable theatres.
Background: Global health care sectors are responsible for 4.
Monitoring is a major component of asthma management in children. Regular monitoring allows for diagnosis confirmation, treatment optimization, and natural history review. Numerous factors that may affect disease activity and patient well-being need to be monitored: response and adherence to treatment, disease control, disease progression, comorbidities, quality of life, medication side-effects, allergen and irritant exposures, diet and more.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Funct Morphol Kinesiol
March 2024
Relative age effects (RAEs) within sports refer to the overrepresentation of athletes born earlier in the selection year and the underrepresentation of those born later in the selection year. Research examining RAEs in women's and girls' rugby union remains limited in comparison to the male literature, whilst the impacts of RAEs on the youth-senior transition are yet to be explored in a female sport context. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine RAEs during entry into the women's and girls' premiership and international rugby union pathways in England, as well as to compare them to their respective senior cohort ( = 1367): (a) U18 England Rugby Centre of Excellence Player ( = 325) vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: MUPPITS-2 was a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial that demonstrated mepolizumab (anti-IL-5) reduced exacerbations and blood and airway eosinophils in urban children with severe eosinophilic asthma. Despite this reduction in eosinophilia, exacerbation risk persisted in certain patients treated with mepolizumab. This raises the possibility that subpopulations of airway eosinophils exist that contribute to breakthrough exacerbations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The atopic march refers to the coexpression and progression of atopic diseases in childhood, often beginning with atopic dermatitis (AD), although children may not progress through each atopic disease.
Objective: We hypothesized that future atopic disease expression is modified by AD phenotype and that these differences result from underlying dysregulation of cytokine signaling.
Methods: Children (n = 285) were enrolled into the Childhood Origins of Asthma (COAST) birth cohort and followed prospectively.
Background: First contact physiotherapy practitioners (FCPPs) are embedded within general practice, providing expert assessment, diagnosis, and management plans for patients with musculoskeletal disorders (MSKDs), without the prior need for GP consultation.
Aim: To determine the clinical effectiveness and costs of FCPP models compared with GP-led models of care.
Design And Setting: Multiple site case-study design of general practices in the UK.
Background: Five distinct respiratory phenotypes based on latent classes of longitudinal patterns of wheezing, allergic sensitization. and pulmonary function measured in urban children from ages from 0 to 7 years have previously been described.
Objective: Our aim was to determine whether distinct respiratory phenotypes are associated with early-life upper respiratory microbiota development and environmental microbial exposures.
Importance: Exposure to outdoor air pollution contributes to childhood asthma development, but many studies lack the geographic, racial and ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity to evaluate susceptibility by individual-level and community-level contextual factors.
Objective: To examine early life exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen oxide (NO2) air pollution and asthma risk by early and middle childhood, and whether individual and community-level characteristics modify associations between air pollution exposure and asthma.
Background: Blood eosinophils and fractional exhaled nitric oxide (Feno) are prognostic biomarkers for exacerbations and predict lung function responses to dupilumab in adolescents and adults with asthma.
Objective: We evaluated the relationship between baseline blood eosinophils and Feno and response to dupilumab in children with asthma.
Methods: Children aged 6 to 11 years with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe asthma (n = 408) were randomized to receive dupilumab 100/200 mg by body weight or volume-matched placebo every 2 weeks for 52 weeks.