Publications by authors named "Tiffany Yang"

Objectives: Pregnancies affected by opioid use disorder (OUD) face difficulties with postpartum pain control. This study aims to determine if prenatal anesthesia consultation for patients on medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) affects maternal postpartum pain control.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of pregnant patients diagnosed on MOUD who received prenatal care and delivered at a single academic institution between January 2017 and July 2023.

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Background: Evidence suggests that endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) may perturb the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, which has a major role in brain development. We aimed to evaluate the effects of childhood exposure to organophosphate pesticides, phenols, and phthalate metabolites, on urinary glucocorticosteroids and inattention in childhood.

Methods: We used data from the Human Early-Life Exposome (HELIX) cohort (2013-2016) and the parametric g-formula to estimate associations between EDCs, glucocorticosteroids, and hit reaction time standard error (HRT-SE), a measure of inattention, and tested for possible effect modification by sex.

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  • Children's diets across six European countries were found to be mostly unhealthy, with variation in dietary patterns linked to obesity.
  • Norwegian children had the highest adherence to healthy eating patterns, while Lithuanian children consumed more sweets and processed foods.
  • Poor adherence to healthy dietary patterns was associated with higher fat mass and obesity measures in both childhood and adolescence.
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Distribution of environmental hazards and vulnerability to their effects vary across socioeconomic groups. Our objective was to analyse the relationship between child socioeconomic position (SEP) at birth and the external exposome at pre-school age (0-4 years). This study included more than 60,000 children from eight cohorts in eleven European cities (Oslo, Copenhagen, Bristol, Bradford, Rotterdam, Nancy, Poitiers, Gipuzkoa, Sabadell, Valencia and Turin).

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Background: Precision Health aims to revolutionize disease prevention by leveraging information across multiple omic datasets (multi-omics). However, existing methods generally do not consider personalized environmental risk factors (e.g.

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Studies evaluating the benefits and risks of green spaces on children's health are scarce. The present study aimed to examine the associations between exposure to green spaces during pregnancy and early childhood with respiratory, cardiometabolic, and neurodevelopmental outcomes in school-age children. We performed an Individual-Participant Data (IPD) meta-analysis involving 35,000 children from ten European birth cohorts across eight countries.

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  • * This study aimed to find genetic variations (SNPs and CNVs) affecting how children metabolize phthalates by analyzing data from 1,044 children in the HELIX cohort.
  • * Significant genetic loci associated with phthalate metabolism were identified, along with genes related to detoxification processes and renal excretion, suggesting a strong genetic component influencing how these compounds are processed in the body.
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Green space exposure has been associated with improved mental, physical and general health. However, the underlying biological mechanisms remain largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between green space exposure and cord and child blood DNA methylation.

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  • Telomere length (TL) and mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) are crucial biomarkers for assessing aging and oxidative stress; researchers hypothesized that exposure to methylmercury (MeHg) from fish would shorten TL and reduce mtDNAcn due to increased oxidative stress.
  • A study involving children aged 6-11 from six European countries measured prenatal and postnatal mercury levels and determined TL and mtDNAcn, while controlling for factors like lifestyle and fish consumption.
  • Results indicated that higher blood mercury levels were associated with longer TL, particularly during prenatal exposure, with significant variation based on concentration, while no changes in mtDNAcn were observed; further research is needed to understand these effects and their health implications.
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Introduction: Ambient air temperature may affect birth outcomes adversely, but little is known about their impact on foetal growth throughout pregnancy. We evaluated the association between temperature exposure during pregnancy and foetal size and growth in three European birth cohorts.

Methods: We studied 23,408 pregnant women from the English Born in Bradford cohort, Dutch Generation R Study, and Spanish INMA Project.

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Chemical exposures often occur in mixtures and exposures during pregnancy may lead to adverse effects on the fetal brain, potentially reducing lower cognitive abilities and fine motor function of the child. We investigated the association of motheŕs exposure to a mixture of chemicals during pregnancy (i.e.

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Introduction: Relative to outdoor air pollution, there is little evidence examining the composition and concentrations of indoor air pollution and its associated health impacts. The INGENIOUS project aims to provide the comprehensive understanding of indoor air pollution in UK homes.

Methods And Analysis: 'Real Home Assessment' is a cross-sectional, multimethod study within INGENIOUS.

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  • Outcome-wide analysis enhances the ability to detect subtle health signals and identify exposures that could lead to effective preventive measures.* -
  • Recent advances in multivariate statistical techniques are underutilized in exposome research; this paper reviews six methods suitable for outcome-wide exposome analysis using R software, addressing common challenges like dependencies, high dimensionality, and missing data.* -
  • The highlighted methods fall into four categories, and the study demonstrates their practicality on a real exposome dataset, recommending dimensionality reduction and Bayesian techniques as particularly effective for handling complex data issues.*
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International sharing of cohort data for research is important and challenging. We explored the feasibility of multicohort federated analyses by examining associations between 3 pregnancy exposures (maternal education, exposure to green vegetation, and gestational diabetes) and offspring body mass index (BMI) from infancy to age 17 years. We used data from 18 cohorts (n = 206,180 mother-child pairs) from the EU Child Cohort Network and derived BMI at ages 0-1, 2-3, 4-7, 8-13, and 14-17 years.

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Background: Energy balance-related behaviours (EBRBs), that is, dietary intake, screen, outdoor play and sleep, tend to combine into 'lifestyle patterns', with potential synergistic influences on health. To date, studies addressing this theme mainly focused on school children and rarely accounted for sleep, with a cross-country perspective.

Objectives: We aimed at comparing lifestyle patterns among preschool-aged children across Europe, their associations with socio-demographic factors and their links with body mass index (BMI).

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Background: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent and highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder of major societal concern. Diagnosis can be challenging and there are large knowledge gaps regarding its etiology, though studies suggest an interplay of genetic and environmental factors involving epigenetic mechanisms. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) show promise as biomarkers of human pathology and novel therapies, and here we aimed to identify blood miRNAs associated with traits of ADHD as possible biomarker candidates and further explore their biological relevance.

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Article Synopsis
  • Early-life environmental exposures may contribute to chronic diseases, prompting this study to investigate a comprehensive health score for children linked to a variety of prenatal and postnatal factors.
  • Analyzed data from 870 children across six European cohorts, assessing 53 prenatal and 105 childhood environmental factors using a health score based on cardiometabolic, respiratory/allergy, and mental health parameters.
  • Findings revealed a lower health score related to maternal smoking and certain pollutants, while higher scores linked to exposure to greenspaces, pets, and healthier lifestyles, highlighting complex relationships between environment and children’s health.
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The associations of exposure to air-pollutants and respiratory illness remains inconsistent and studies have not adequately addressed the non-linearity and delayed effects of exposure. This is a retrospective cohort study using linked routine health and pollution data collected between January 2018 and December 2021. Participants were patients who visited General Practice (GP) or accident and emergency (A&E) services for respiratory illness.

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Purpose: We evaluated the feasibility of patient symptom self-reporting using a web-based interface (WBI), with automated message alerts for severe and/or worsening symptoms, in patients undergoing definitive chemoradiation therapy (CRT).

Methods And Materials: Patients receiving definitive CRT for gastrointestinal, lung, and head and neck cancers with access to a computer and/or mobile device were eligible. Symptom self-reporting was conducted via a WBI through surveys adapted from the patient-reported outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events: 2 per week during CRT and 1 per week for 3 months after CRT.

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Introduction: Living in an area with high levels of child poverty predisposes children to poorer mental and physical health. ActEarly is a 5-year research programme that comprises a large number of interventions (>20) with citizen science and co-production embedded. It aims to improve the health and well-being of children and families living in two areas of the UK with high levels of deprivation; Bradford in West Yorkshire, and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

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Background: Obesity and neurodevelopmental delay are complex traits that often co-occur and differ between boys and girls. Prenatal exposures are believed to influence children's obesity, but it is unknown whether exposures of pregnant mothers can confer a different risk of obesity between sexes, and whether they can affect neurodevelopment.

Methods: We analyzed data from 1044 children from the HELIX project, comprising 93 exposures during pregnancy, and clinical, neuropsychological, and methylation data during childhood (5-11 years).

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Purpose Of Review: A scoping review was conducted to identify interventions that successfully alter biomarker concentrations of phenols, glycol ethers, and phthalates resulting from dietary intake and personal care product (PCPs) use.

Recent Findings: Twenty-six interventions in populations ranging from children to older adults were identified; 11 actively removed or replaced products, 9 provided products containing the chemicals being studied, and 6 were education-only based interventions. Twelve interventions manipulated only dietary intake with a focus on bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, 8 studies intervened only on PCPs use and focused on a wider range of chemicals including BPA, phthalates, triclosan, parabens, and ultraviolet absorbers, while 6 studies intervened on both diet and PCPs and focused on phthalates, parabens, and BPA and its alternatives.

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  • The research investigates whether the 'immigrant health paradox,' where immigrants generally have better health outcomes, also applies to the birth weights of their children compared to native-born children in Western Europe and Australia.
  • Data from five major studies with thousands of participants was used to compare birth weights of infants born to immigrant parents versus native parents.
  • Findings revealed mixed results: children of immigrants in France and Australia had higher birth weights, while those in the UK and the Netherlands had lower birth weights, with smoking during pregnancy identified as a possible factor influencing these differences.
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