Aris: Neighborhood Opportunities and Disparities in Child health Outcomes

Smith: Lung Function Measured by Oscillometry in the Healthy Start and PETALS Cohorts

Key Takeaways:

Izzuddin M. Aris, PhD (Harvard Medical School)
Neighborhood Opportunities and Disparities in Child Health Outcomes

• Many studies that examine disparities in child health outcomes focus on individual socioeconomic factors that contribute to neighborhood disadvantage (e.g., high poverty rates), but these analyses may not adequately capture the totality of early-life social experiences.
• ECHO research found that children who lived in neighborhoods with higher levels of opportunity during early life were at less risk for developing obesity and had lower asthma incidence, highlighting the importance of community-level interventions that can address the structures that consistently compromise the health of marginalized communities and promote overall health equity.

Kate Hamlington Smith, PhD (Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus)
Lung Function Measured by Oscillometry in the Healthy Start and Pregnancy Environment and Lifestyle Study (PETALS) Cohorts

• Oscillometry—a technique for measuring lung function and respiratory health—can be easily used with young children in a variety of settings, helping researchers measure and evaluate the role of maternal health in childhood lung function.
• By studying early life exposures and measuring lung function in childhood, researchers can identify the exposures that may be modified to protect lung health and decrease the risk of developing respiratory diseases.

Speakers:

Izzuddin M. Aris, PhD

Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Division of Chronic Disease Research Across the Lifecourse, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute

Speaker Bio: Dr. Aris is an epidemiologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. He earned his BSc in Biomedical Sciences in 2010, and PhD in Epidemiology in 2015, both from the National University of Singapore.

Kate Hamlington Smith, PhD

Pediatric Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine
Children’s Hospital Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Speaker Bio: Dr. Hamlington Smith is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Section of Pediatric Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Children’s Hospital Colorado, where she studies the progression of asthma and complex respiratory diseases in early childhood. She received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University, followed by post-doctoral study in lung physiology at the University of Vermont.

Date: Wednesday, June 14th, 1 to 2pm ET|

Dr. Aris’s Slides
Dr. Smith’s Slides