Wage losses in the year after breast cancer: Extent and determinants among Canadian women

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website at the link below. © The Author 2008.Background - Wage losses after breast cancer may result in considerable financial burden. Their assessment is made more urgent because more women now participate in the workforce and because breast cancer is managed using multiple treatment modalities that could lead to long work absences. We evaluated wage losses, their determinants, and the associations between wage losses and changes for the worse in the family's financial situation among Canadian women over the first 12 months after diagnosis of early breast cancer. Methods - We conducted a prospective cohort study among women with breast cancer from eight hospitals throughout the province of Quebec. Information that permitted the calculation of wage losses and information on potential determinants of wage losses were collected by three pretested telephone interviews conducted over the year following the start of treatment. Information on medical characteristics was obtained from medical records. The main outcome was the proportion of annual wages lost because of breast cancer. Multivariable analysis of variance using the general linear model was used to identify personal, medical, and employment characteristics associated with the proportion of wages lost. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results - Among 962 eligible breast cancer patients, 800 completed all three interviews. Of these, 459 had a paying job during the month before diagnosis. On average, these working women lost 27% of their projected usual annual wages (median = 19%) after compensation received had been taken into account. Multivariable analysis showed that a higher percentage of lost wages was statistically significantly associated with a lower level of education (Ptrend = .0018), living 50 km or more from the hospital where surgery was performed (P = .070), lower social support (P = .012), having invasive disease (P = .086), receipt of chemotherapy (P < .001), self-employment (P < .001), shorter tenure in the job (Ptrend < .001), and part-time work (P < .001). Conclusion - Wage losses and their effects on financial situation constitute an important adverse consequence of breast cancer in Canada.The Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Fondation de l’Université Laval

Implications of changing trends in hydroclimatic and water quality parameters on estuarine habitats in the Gulf Coastal Plain

Florida’s low elevation and geographic location make it particularly vulnerable to climate change effects such as sea level rise, increased intensity and frequency of storm events, and altered precipitation. Climate change is expected to exacerbate hydrological cycling with potential widespread implications for estuarine habitats that thrive under specific salinity regimes. We used historical data from sites in the eastern Gulf Coastal Plain, USA to examine trends and trend variability of several climatic, hydrologic, and estuarine water quality variables which have implications on seagrass and oyster habitat extent in downstream estuarine environments. We analyzed temperature, precipitation, low-flow and high-flow metrics (including the highest or lowest daily, 7-day average, and 30-day average) for each season annually over the period 1985–2020. We also analyzed estuarine water clarity metrics and salinity within waterbody segments of four estuary systems within the study area. Hydroclimate results showed that temperature increased at most sites. While there was variation in streamflow, the overall trend was declining streamflow. Declining trends were observed in most water clarity metrics, indicating improved clarity, especially in winter. Salinity generally declined across the study area. While overall streamflow decreased, main river stems to the estuaries had increasing trends in maximum streamflow characteristics, likely contributing to the decrease in estuarine salinity across the region. These results indicate that trends in streamflow (both magnitude and timing) in the watershed affect downstream estuarine water quality. These results have important implications on seagrass and oyster restoration and management efforts in the region, indicating that it is important to understand changing climatic and hydrologic conditions and how they may impact the estuarine resources

Intercomparison of an Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) with ambient fine aerosol measurements in downtown Atlanta, Georgia

Currently, there are a limited number of field studies that evaluate the long-term performance of the Aerodyne Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) against established monitoring networks. In this study, we present seasonal intercomparisons of the ACSM with collocated fine aerosol (PM_2.5) measurements at the Southeastern Aerosol Research and Characterization (SEARCH) Jefferson Street (JST) site near downtown Atlanta, GA, during 2011–2012. Intercomparison of two collocated ACSMs resulted in strong correlations (<i>r</i>² > 0.8) for all chemical species, except chloride (<i>r</i>² = 0.21) indicating that ACSM instruments are capable of stable and reproducible operation. In general, speciated ACSM mass concentrations correlate well (<i>r</i>² > 0.7) with the filter-adjusted continuous measurements from JST, although the correlation for nitrate is weaker (<i>r</i>² = 0.55) in summer. Correlations of the ACSM NR-PM₁ (non-refractory particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 1 μm) plus elemental carbon (EC) with tapered element oscillating microbalance (TEOM) PM_2.5 and Federal Reference Method (FRM) PM₁ mass are strong with <i>r</i>² > 0.7 and <i>r</i>² > 0.8, respectively. Discrepancies might be attributed to evaporative losses of semi-volatile species from the filter measurements used to adjust the collocated continuous measurements. This suggests that adjusting the ambient aerosol continuous measurements with results from filter analysis introduced additional bias to the measurements. We also recommend to calibrate the ambient aerosol monitoring instruments using aerosol standards rather than gas-phase standards. The fitting approach for ACSM relative ionization for sulfate was shown to improve the comparisons between ACSM and collocated measurements in the absence of calibrated values, suggesting the importance of adding sulfate calibration into the ACSM calibration routine

IBEX:A versatile multiplex optical imaging approach for deep phenotyping and spatial analysis of cells in complex tissues

The diverse composition of mammalian tissues poses challenges for understanding the cell–cell interactions required for organ homeostasis and how spatial relationships are perturbed during disease. Existing methods such as single-cell genomics, lacking a spatial context, and traditional immunofluorescence, capturing only two to six molecular features, cannot resolve these issues. Imaging technologies have been developed to address these problems, but each possesses limitations that constrain widespread use. Here we report a method that overcomes major impediments to highly multiplex tissue imaging. “Iterative bleaching extends multiplexity” (IBEX) uses an iterative staining and chemical bleaching method to enable high-resolution imaging of >65 parameters in the same tissue section without physical degradation. IBEX can be employed with various types of conventional microscopes and permits use of both commercially available and user-generated antibodies in an “open” system to allow easy adjustment of staining panels based on ongoing marker discovery efforts. We show how IBEX can also be used with amplified staining methods for imaging strongly fixed tissues with limited epitope retention and with oligonucleotide-based staining, allowing potential cross-referencing between flow cytometry, cellular indexing of transcriptomes and epitopes by sequencing, and IBEX analysis of the same tissue. To facilitate data processing, we provide an open-source platform for automated registration of iterative images. IBEX thus represents a technology that can be rapidly integrated into most current laboratory workflows to achieve high-content imaging to reveal the complex cellular landscape of diverse organs and tissues

How many steps/day are enough? For older adults and special populations

Older adults and special populations (living with disability and/or chronic illness that may limit mobility and/or physical endurance) can benefit from practicing a more physically active lifestyle, typically by increasing ambulatory activity. Step counting devices (accelerometers and pedometers) offer an opportunity to monitor daily ambulatory activity; however, an appropriate translation of public health guidelines in terms of steps/day is unknown. Therefore this review was conducted to translate public health recommendations in terms of steps/day. Normative data indicates that 1) healthy older adults average 2,000-9,000 steps/day, and 2) special populations average 1,200-8,800 steps/day. Pedometer-based interventions in older adults and special populations elicit a weighted increase of approximately 775 steps/day (or an effect size of 0.26) and 2,215 steps/day (or an effect size of 0.67), respectively. There is no evidence to inform a moderate intensity cadence (i.e., steps/minute) in older adults at this time. However, using the adult cadence of 100 steps/minute to demark the lower end of an absolutely-defined moderate intensity (i.e., 3 METs), and multiplying this by 30 minutes produces a reasonable heuristic (i.e., guiding) value of 3,000 steps. However, this cadence may be unattainable in some frail/diseased populations. Regardless, to truly translate public health guidelines, these steps should be taken over and above activities performed in the course of daily living, be of at least moderate intensity accumulated in minimally 10 minute bouts, and add up to at least 150 minutes over the week. Considering a daily background of 5,000 steps/day (which may actually be too high for some older adults and/or special populations), a computed translation approximates 8,000 steps on days that include a target of achieving 30 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), and approximately 7,100 steps/day if averaged over a week. Measured directly and including these background activities, the evidence suggests that 30 minutes of daily MVPA accumulated in addition to habitual daily activities in healthy older adults is equivalent to taking approximately 7,000-10,000 steps/day. Those living with disability and/or chronic illness (that limits mobility and or/physical endurance) display lower levels of background daily activity, and this will affect whole-day estimates of recommended physical activity

Across-cohort QC analyses of GWAS summary statistics from complex traits.

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have been successful in discovering SNP trait associations for many quantitative traits and common diseases. Typically, the effect sizes of SNP alleles are very small and this requires large genome-wide association meta-analyses (GWAMAs) to maximize statistical power. A trend towards ever-larger GWAMA is likely to continue, yet dealing with summary statistics from hundreds of cohorts increases logistical and quality control problems, including unknown sample overlap, and these can lead to both false positive and false negative findings. In this study, we propose four metrics and visualization tools for GWAMA, using summary statistics from cohort-level GWASs. We propose methods to examine the concordance between demographic information, and summary statistics and methods to investigate sample overlap. (I) We use the population genetics Fst statistic to verify the genetic origin of each cohort and their geographic location, and demonstrate using GWAMA data from the GIANT Consortium that geographic locations of cohorts can be recovered and outlier cohorts can be detected. (II) We conduct principal component analysis based on reported allele frequencies, and are able to recover the ancestral information for each cohort. (III) We propose a new statistic that uses the reported allelic effect sizes and their standard errors to identify significant sample overlap or heterogeneity between pairs of cohorts. (IV) To quantify unknown sample overlap across all pairs of cohorts, we propose a method that uses randomly generated genetic predictors that does not require the sharing of individual-level genotype data and does not breach individual privacy