Publications by authors named "Keith Acosta"
Article Synopsis
- A 1-year-old child ingested a lead-containing medallion from India, leading to severe lead poisoning.
- Analysis of the medallion revealed extremely high levels of lead and other metals, significantly exceeding safety limits for children’s jewelry in the US.
- The case underscores the global risk of lead exposure from foreign items, particularly for vulnerable populations like young children.
Background: The burden of pediatric asthma and other allergic diseases is not evenly distributed among United States populations.
Objective: To determine whether urinary biomarkers are associated with asthma morbidity, and if associations vary by child race, ethnicity and sex.
Methods: This study includes n = 152 children with physician-diagnosed asthma who participated in the School Inner-City Asthma Intervention Study (SICAS-2).
The study objective was to evaluate the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on pediatric blood lead testing in the United States. Clinical laboratory pediatric (ages <6 years) blood lead level (BLL) tests performed by Quest Diagnostics, January 2019-March 2022, were analyzed. Patients were categorized by age, by sex, and, through matching by ZIP code with US Census data, for race, ethnicity, pre-1950 housing, and poverty estimates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To evaluate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on childhood lead testing and blood lead levels.
Methods: A retrospective analysis of lead tests and results was performed across 3 urban medical centers during the pre-COVID-19 (March 10, 2019-March 9, 2020) and COVID-19 (March 10, 2020-March 10, 2022) periods. Interrupted time series analysis with quasi-Poisson regression was used to evaluate changes in lead testing between study periods.
Article Synopsis
- The study examines the environmental impact of increased virtual medicine usage during the COVID-19 pandemic at a children's hospital in Massachusetts, focusing on fossil fuel consumption and air pollutants.
- Researchers analyzed data from virtual visits before and during the pandemic, finding a significant drop in travel distance, gasoline use, and greenhouse gas emissions.
- The results highlighted that virtual medicine contributed to substantial environmental benefits, including over 620,000 gallons of fossil fuel saved and reduced electricity use equivalent to powering over 1,200 homes for a year, suggesting potential for broader application in healthcare.
Importance: Chronic aortic regurgitation (AR) causes left ventricular (LV) volume overload, which results in progressive LV remodeling negatively affecting outcomes. Whether cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) volumetric quantification can provide incremental risk stratification over standard clinical and echocardiographic evaluation in patients with chronic moderate or severe AR is unknown.
Objective: To compare LV remodeling measurements by CMR and echocardiography between patients with and without heart failure symptoms and to verify the association of remodeling measurements of patients with chronic moderate or severe AR but no or minimal symptoms with clinical outcomes receiving medical management.