Showing papers by "Frank E. Speizer published in 2011"
TL;DR: The association between low parental education and lung function was not consistent across the countries, but showed a more pronounced inverse gradient in the Western countries, and social gradients were attenuated after adjusting for known risk factors.
Abstract: Studies of the relationships between low socio-economic status and impaired lung function were conducted mainly in Western European countries and North America. East–West differences remain unexplored. Associations between parental education and lung function were explored using data on 24,010 school-children from eight cross-sectional studies conducted in North America, Western and Eastern Europe. Parental education was defined as low and high using country-specific classifications. Country-specific estimates of effects of low parental education on volume and flow parameters were obtained using linear and logistic regression, controlling for early life and other individual risk factors. Meta-regressions were used for assessment of heterogeneity between country-specific estimates. The association between low parental education and lung function was not consistent across the countries, but showed a more pronounced inverse gradient in the Western countries. The most consistent decrease associated with low parental education was found for peak expiratory flow (PEF), ranging from −2.80 to −1.14%, with statistically significant associations in five out of eight countries. The mean odds ratio for low PEF (<75% of predicted) was 1.34 (95% CI 1.06–1.70) after all adjustments. Although social gradients were attenuated after adjusting for known risk factors, these risk factors could not completely explain the social gradient in lung function.
12 citations
TL;DR: The history of this young Victorian-era physician is both humbling and instructive for the modern epidemiologist, who has the advantages of the successes of ever more rapid, computer-based, technical approaches to evaluate existing data sources, and fewer opportunities to actually collect primary data from large number of patients using physiologic tools.
Abstract: In 1844, before a large medical audience in London, John Hutchinson demonstrated the use of measurements of pulmonary function to predict disease. In contrast to standard practice at that time, he conducted an epidemiological investigation that would have been acceptable by today's standards, in which he examined over 2000 people and contrasted healthy and diseased cases. His data clearly indicated how, what he called, "vital capacity" predicted disease. Exploring the history of this young Victorian-era physician is both humbling and instructive for the modern epidemiologist, who has the advantages of the successes of ever more rapid, computer-based, technical approaches to evaluate existing data sources, and fewer opportunities to actually collect primary data from large number of patients using physiologic tools.
1 citations