Seminar Series: Edmond Shenassa, Family Science
When |
Feb 08, 2016
from 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM |
---|---|
Where | 1101 Morrill Hall |
Contact Name | Tiffany Pittman |
Contact Phone | 301-405-6403 |
Attendees |
Luoman Bao Feinian Chen Nicole DeLoatch William Fennie Bill Hadden Omkar Joshi Zhiyong Lin Xiaohong Ma Lea Pessin Michael Rendall Cristian Sanchez Liana Sayer Shengwei Sun Riley Wilson Yeats Ye |
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About the Talk
In the US 41% of children (aged 3-11) and 34% of adolescents (aged 12-19) are exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke with considerable racial and ethnic disparities in exposure. Although a number of individual-level determinants of this disparity have been identified, its contextual determinants remain largely unexamined. We used log-normal regression models to examine disparities in serum cotinine in relation to Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) level income inequality among 14,649 non-smoking children aged 3-15 from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2012). Within areas with low income inequality, non-Hispanic black children had significantly lower serum cotinine concentrations than non-Hispanic white children (-0.26; 95% CI: -0.38, -0.15). However, within areas with high income inequality, average serum cotinine levels for non-Hispanic black and non-Hispanic white children were the same (0.01; 95% CI: -0.16, 0.18). In contrast, cotinine concentrations remained significantly lower among Mexican-American compared to non-Hispanic white children in all areas. Both non-Hispanic white and Mexican American children evinced a pattern of decreasing serum cotinine levels with increasing income inequality. In contrast, serum cotinine levels of non-Hispanic black children did not change as a function of the level of income inequality. Our findings add to the evidence suggesting that health effects of income inequality are likely to be race-specific.
About the Speaker
Edmond Shenassa, Sc.D. has a dual doctorate in Epidemiology and Maternal and Child Health from Harvard School of Public Health. He is the Principal Investigator of the Rhode Island Birth cohort study, an investigation of in-utero exposure to toxins and biologic and social development during infancy. Dr. Shenassa also investigates social determinants of maternal and child health. He was the founding director of the MCH program at the University of Maryland.
This talk will be co-presented with Lauren M. Rossen, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Visit Professor Shenassa's webpage
Please note that, at the present time, Morrill Hall is not accessible for handicapped individuals.