Vitamin D deficiency among children and adolescents living in sunny South Texas

Background: Exposure to sunlight is essential to produce Vitamin D (ViD). Recent studies suggest obesity is associated with low ViD concentration. Living in South Texas with 220 sunny days a year should be enough to maintain adequate ViD levels. We aimed to analyze ViD levels and obesity in children and adolescents. Methods: We included 1239 pediatric (1.5 to 18.8 years old) participants (primary care clinic from Laredo) with registered CDC percentiles of BMI (pBMI) and serum concentrations of ViD (Atellica™). Data are described as median (p25, p75), Loess correlation between pBMI and ViD, ANCOVA to adjust by age, sex, and pBMI. We used the program Stata v16.1. The size of effects is expressed as Cohen-d and eta squared (eta2). Results: The median age was 12.5 (9.5, 15.1) years, pBMI was 94 (80, 98), 49% females (n=611). The pBMI showed small differences by sex (M 82.1±24 vs M 84.5±23, Cohen-d 0.14, p,0.001). The Loess showed an inverse relationship between pBMI with a rapid drop of ViD from p90. The ANCOVA coefficients were negative for sex (b=- 0.32 for females p=0.007, eta2=0.03) and pBMI (b=-0.001, p=0.025, eta2=0.15) on ViD concentration. Conclusion: We conclude obesity and female are related to low concentration VitD in sunny Laredo. Perhaps participants with more pBMI have less outdoor physical activity and increased sequester of ViD from adipose tissue. Future research should analyze the effect of these findings on adulthood morbidity

DEVELOPING A TOOL USED FOR ASSESSING SUNSCREEN UTILIZATION AND SUN EXPOSURE

Introduction: Skin cancer incidence has increased within the last 40 years. It accounts to 1 in 3 cancer diagnoses worldwide. (1) Sunscreen serves as a protective barrier against the harmful effects of sun exposure such as skin cancer. (2) Despite the advantages of using sunscreen, studies suggest that it is being under-utilized. (3) The preliminary goal of this research is to develop, validate and standardize a questionnaire to assesses the sunscreen utilization of adolescents and adults in both Mexico and the United States along the Rio Grande Valley Methods A questionnaire in both English and Spanish has been developed to assess sunscreen utilization and sun exposure of the surveyees. We will perform face validity, reliability with test-retest approach, internal consistence with alpha Cronbach, intraclass correlation in clusters (i.e.: family, schools or clinics), sensitivity to detect contrasts The results of the survey will be analyzed using a 2k factorial design. Expected results: Using the 2k factorial design, we aim to assess the differences of sunscreen use amongst the following groups: Male versus female surveyees, adolescent versus adult surveyees and people residing in the United States versus residing in Mexico. The obtained statistics will help to calculate sample sizes in future studies. Future endeavors: Intervening with adolescents who do not utilize sunscreen well is something we look forward to partaking in: both locally and through policy change. After obtaining preliminary data with the questionnaire, we plan to do further studies regarding the relationship between circulating vitamin D levels, sun exposure, and sunscreen usage. Affiliations: 1. School of Medicine. UTRGV. Edinburg. Texas. 2. CEDIAMET, UMAN. Reynosa. Mexico. 3. Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas. Reynosa, Mexico. 4. Private practice. Laredo. Texas. 5. Population Health & Biostatistics. UTRGV. Harlingen. Texas