Publications by authors named "Lin Ammar"
Objective: We aimed to develop an algorithm that accurately identifies children with Down syndrome (DS) using administrative data.
Methods: We identified a cohort of children born between 2000 and 2017, enrolled in the Tennessee Medicaid Program (TennCare), who either had DS coded on their birth certificate or had a diagnosis listed using an International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code (suspected DS), and who received care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a comprehensive academic medical center, in the United States. Children with suspected DS were defined as having DS if they had (a) karyotype-confirmed DS indicated on their birth certificate; (b) karyotype-pending DS indicated on their birth certificate (or just DS if test type was not specified) and at least two healthcare encounters for DS during the first 6 years of life; or (c) at least three healthcare encounters for DS, with the first and last encounter separated by at least 30 days, during the first six years of life.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates the potential of e-cigarettes (ECs) to aid pregnant smokers in quitting combustible cigarettes (CCs) and evaluates the characteristics of users who switch to ECs.
- Approximately 1.5% of pregnant smokers reported using ECs, with around 29.7% of them becoming exclusive EC users; EC initiators tended to have lower socioeconomic status and less access to prenatal care.
- Findings suggest that while some pregnant smokers who switch to ECs may reduce their CC usage, there is no evidence that this leads to significant health benefits for neonates, indicating that ECs may not be an effective strategy for smoking cessation during pregnancy.
Newborn metabolite perturbations may identify potential biomarkers or mechanisms underlying adverse, smoking-related childhood health outcomes. We assessed associations between third-trimester smoking and newborn metabolite concentrations using the Tennessee Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS, 2009-2019) as the discovery cohort and INSPIRE (2012-2014) as the replication cohort. Children were linked to newborn screening metabolic data (33 metabolites).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Research on health effects and potential harms of electronic cigarette (EC) use during pregnancy is limited. We sought to determine the risks of pregnancy EC use on pregnancy-related adverse birth outcomes and assess whether quitting ECs reduces the risks.
Methods: Women with singleton live births who participated in the US Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) survey study 2016-2020 were classified into four mutually exclusive groups, by their use of ECs and combustible cigarettes (CCs) during pregnancy: non-use, EC only use, CC only use, and dual use.