Publications by authors named "Ken R Smith"

Objective: To compare odds of maternal morbidity by mode of becoming pregnant and type of medically assisted reproduction treatments: fertility-enhancing drugs, intrauterine insemination (IUI), and assisted reproductive technology (ART) with autologous or donor oocytes.

Methods: Birth certificates were used to study maternal morbidity among the birthing population in Utah between 2009 and 2017 (N=469,919 deliveries); 22,543 pregnancies occurred through medically assisted reproduction (4.8%).

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Objective: To ascertain how an instrumental variables (IV) model can improve upon the estimates obtained from traditional cost-of-illness (COI) models that treat health conditions as predetermined.

Study Setting And Design: A simulation study based on observational data compares the coefficients and average marginal effects from an IV model to a traditional COI model when an unobservable confounder is introduced. The two approaches are then applied to real data, using a kinship-weighted family history as an instrument, and differences are interpreted within the context of the findings from the simulation study.

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Introduction: Clinical notes, biomarkers, and neuroimaging have been proven valuable in dementia prediction models. Whether commonly available structured clinical data can predict dementia is an emerging area of research. We aimed to predict Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Alzheimer's disease related dementias (ADRD) in a well-phenotyped, population-based cohort using a machine learning approach.

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There are substantial challenges in studying human transgenerational epigenetic outcomes resulting from environmental conditions. The task requires specialized methods and tools that incorporate specific knowledge of multigenerational relationship combinations of probands and their ancestors, phenotype data for individuals, environmental information of ancestors and their descendants, which can span historical to present datasets, and informative environmental data that chronologically aligns with ancestors and descendants over space and time. As a result, there are few epidemiologic studies of potential transgenerational effects in human populations, thus limiting the knowledge of ancestral environmental conditions and the potential impacts we face with modern human health outcomes.

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Experiencing the death of a family member and providing end-of-life caregiving can be stressful on families - this is well-documented in both the caregiving and bereavement literatures. Adopting a linked-lived theoretical perspective, exposure to the death and dying of one family member could be conceptualized as a significant life stressor that produces short and long-term health consequences for surviving family members. This study uses familial-linked administrative records from the Utah Population Database to assess how variations in family hospice experiences affect mortality risk for surviving spouses and children.

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Socially disadvantaged groups generally are more likely to reside in areas with less desirable conditions. We examined longitudinal relationships between neighborhood resident characteristics and amenities from 1990 to 2010 in an urban area of Utah, U.S.

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To better understand determinants and potential disparities in end of life, we model decedents' place of death with explanatory variables describing familial, social, and economic resources. A retrospective cohort of 204,041 decedents and their family members are drawn from the Utah Population Database family caregiving dataset. Using multinomial regression, we model place of death, categorized as at home, in a hospital, in another location, or unknown.

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Background: Children of parents who had melanoma are more likely to develop skin cancer themselves owing to shared familial risks. The prevention of sunburns and promotion of sun-protective behaviors are essential to control cancer among these children. The Family Lifestyles, Actions and Risk Education (FLARE) intervention will be delivered as part of a randomized controlled trial to support parent-child collaboration to improve sun safety outcomes among children of melanoma survivors.

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Introduction: Women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Whether HDP is also associated with later-life dementia has not been fully explored.

Methods: Using the Utah Population Database, we performed an 80-year retrospective cohort study of 59,668 parous women.

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Objective: To determine whether women with spontaneous preterm birth (PTB) have increased risks for long-term mortality.

Design: Retrospective cohort.

Setting: Births in Utah between 1939 and 1977.

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Background And Objectives: Older adult multimorbidity trajectories are helpful for understanding the current and future health patterns of aging populations. The construction of multimorbidity trajectories from comorbidity index scores will help inform public health and clinical interventions targeting those individuals that are on unhealthy trajectories. Investigators have used many different techniques when creating multimorbidity trajectories in prior literature, and no standard way has emerged.

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In this ecological study, we used longitudinal data to assess if changes in neighborhood food environments were associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) prevalence, controlling for a host of neighborhood characteristics and spatial error correlation. We found that the population-adjusted prevalence of fast-food and pizza restaurants, grocery stores, and full-service restaurants along with changes in their numbers from 1990 to 2010 were associated with 2015 T2DM prevalence. The results suggested that neighborhoods where fast-food restaurants have increased and neighborhoods where full-service restaurants have decreased over time may be especially important targets for educational campaigns or other public health-related T2DM interventions.

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Importance: Breast cancer diagnosed within 5 to 10 years after childbirth, called postpartum breast cancer (PPBC), is associated with increased risk for metastasis and death. Whether a postpartum diagnosis is an independent risk factor or a surrogate marker of cancer features associated with poor outcomes remains understudied.

Objective: To determine whether diagnostic temporal proximity to childbirth is associated with features of breast cancer associated with poor outcomes, including tumor stage, estrogen receptor (ER) status, and risk for distant metastasis and breast cancer-specific mortality, using a population database from the state of Utah.

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Background: Transgenerational epigenetic risks associated with complex health outcomes, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), have attracted increasing attention. Transgenerational environmental risk exposures with potential for epigenetic effects can be effectively identified using space-time clustering. Specifically applied to ancestors of individuals with disease outcomes, space-time clustering characterized for vulnerable developmental stages of growth can provide a measure of relative risk for disease outcomes in descendants.

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Background: Long-term mental health outcomes were characterized in patients who were diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), and risk factors for the development of mental health disorders were identified.

Methods: Patients who were diagnosed with HL between 1997 and 2014 were identified in the Utah Cancer Registry. Each patient was matched with up to five individuals from a general population cohort identified within the Utah Population Database, a unique source of linked records that includes patient and demographic data.

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We determine whether a suspected seasonal variability in semen quality affect subsequent live birth rates. This is a retrospective, cohort analysis of men who provided semen analyses as part of fertility workup through a large andrology lab between 1996 and 2013 and corresponding birth rates using the Utah Population Database (UPDB). Semen parameters were analysed including total motile count (TMC), total sperm count, sperm concentration and progressive motility.

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The relationship between birth interval length and child outcomes has received increased attention in recent years, but few studies have examined offspring outcomes across the life course in North America. We use data from the Utah Population Database to examine the relationship between birth intervals and short- and long-term outcomes: preterm birth, low birth weight (LBW), infant mortality, college degree attainment, occupational status, and adult mortality. Using linear regression, linear probability models, and survival analysis, we compare results from models with and without sibling comparisons.

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Background: Breast cancer survival is increasing, making late effects such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) more relevant. The purpose of this study was to evaluate incident CVD following breast cancer diagnosis among long-term survivors and to investigate possible risk factors for CVD.

Methods: A population-based cohort of 6641 breast cancer survivors diagnosed between 1997 and 2009 who survived at least 10 years was identified within the Utah Cancer Registry.

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Highly public anti-Black violence may increase preterm birth in the general population of pregnant women via stress-mediated paths, particularly Black women exposed in early gestation. To examine spillover from racial violence in the US, we included a total of 49 high publicity incidents of the following types: police lethal force toward Black persons, legal decisions not to indict/convict officers involved, and hate crime murders of Black victims. National search interest in these incidents was measured via Google Trends to proxy for public awareness of racial violence.

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Background: In vitro fertilization (IVF) births contribute to a considerable proportion of preterm birth (PTB) each year. However, there is no formal surveillance of adverse perinatal outcomes for less invasive fertility treatments. The study objective was to describe associations between fertility treatment (in vitro fertilization, intrauterine insemination, usually with ovulation drugs (IUI), or ovulation drugs alone) and preterm birth, compared to no treatment in subfertile women.

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Objective: To compare risks of adverse birth outcomes among pregnancies conceived with and without medically assisted reproduction treatments.

Methods: Birth certificates were used to study birth outcomes of all neonates born in Utah from 2009 through 2017. Of the 469,919 deliveries, 52.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study analyzed live birth rates in 17,952 female cancer patients diagnosed at 18 or older from 1952-2014, comparing them to 89,436 healthy controls to understand the impact of cancer on fertility.
  • - Results showed that 17.4% of cancer survivors had at least one live birth compared to 21.7% in healthy controls, with an overall incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 0.69, indicating lower live birth rates among cancer patients.
  • - Different cancer types had varying impacts on live birth rates, with breast cancer showing an IRR of 0.44, while patients diagnosed at older ages had the lowest IRR of 0.48, highlighting the negative
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