Child, Family, and Neighborhood Predictors of Children’s Body Mass Index: A Longitudinal Study of Moderated Mediation

Childhood obesity is a widely prevalent public health concern that disproportionately affects children from low-income families (Cameron et al., 2015). The causes of child obesity and socioeconomic disparities in its prevalence are not well understood, but are likely because of co-occurring and interacting risk factors at multiple levels of influence on children (Harrison et al., 2011). In particular, aspects of children’s early neighborhood environment, including food retailers and parks, may affect children’s weight directly by influencing health behaviors (e.g., eating habits, physical activity). A neighborhood’s social attributes (e.g., poverty levels, perceived danger) could also indirectly affect child weight by compromising self-regulation (SR), which could then influence eating behaviors. Additionally, parents may provide a buffering effect for children in the context of high levels of neighborhood risk (Supplee et al., 2007). The aims of the current study were to assess longitudinal relationships between the neighborhood environment in early childhood (the “built” environment and neighborhood social context) and growth in child body mass index (BMI) from age 5 to 10.5, to test child SR as a mediator of associations between neighborhood context and child BMI growth, and to test supportive parenting as a moderator of relationships between neighborhood and child SR and between child SR and child BMI growth. Study data came from the Early Steps Multisite Study, a sample of 731 predominantly low-income families from Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia assessed when children were age 2 to 10.5. Overall, the current study provided little evidence for the proposed model. Neighborhood variables and SR at preschool-age were both unrelated to growth in child BMI over time. Census-based neighborhood social disadvantage was found to interact with supportive parenting in relation to preschool-age SR, such that the relationship between supportive parenting and child SR was stronger in the context of lower levels of neighborhood disadvantage. Variability in neighborhood context and urbanicity across the three sites may have hindered the ability to detect associations. As child obesity is complex and influenced by many factors both proximal and distal, future research should continue to evaluate interactions and mediating mechanisms among variables at multiple levels of children’s ecology

A GENETICALLY INFORMED STUDY OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN PRENATAL ALCOHOL EXPOSURE AND PARENTAL DEPRESSION IN RISK FOR CHILDREN’S EMERGING EXTERNALIZING PROBLEMS

Prenatal Alcohol Exposure (PAE) has been associated with children’s externalizing problems (e.g., D’Onofrio et al.,2007); however, it remains unclear whether low/moderate PAE has a meaningful effect on children’s outcomes. Perhaps low/moderate PAE increases children’s vulnerability to externalizing but only in the context of postnatal adversity, such as parental depression. An adoption study is advantageous for addressing questions about the independent influence of PAE, as genetic and postnatal contextual risk can be disentangled from one another and their interactive associations may be assessed. Primary aims of the current study were to examine independent and interactive associations between PAE and postnatal exposure to parental depressive symptoms in relation to child externalizing problems at early school-age, after accounting for inherited risk. The role of inhibitory control (IC) as a possible mediator of the relationship between PAE and externalizing was also examined. Study data came from the Early Growth and Development Study, a multi-site prospective longitudinal adoption study. Reported alcohol consumption was lower than expected. There was no evidence for an association between PAE and children’s externalizing, independently or in interaction with adoptive parent depression. There was also no effect of PAE on children’s IC. Adoptive mother and father depressive symptoms were independently associated with children’s externalizing. IC at 27 months was negatively related to child externalizing. Findings did not support the hypothesis that low/moderate PAE would be associated with children’s externalizing, regardless of the presence of postnatal contextual adversity. Study findings are novel because of the adoption design, in which the parents providing the postnatal environment were genetically unrelated to the child and did not provide the prenatal environment. However, adoptive families were relatively low-risk, thus findings may not generalize to families facing higher levels of postnatal contextual adversity

International genome-wide meta-analysis identifies new primary biliary cirrhosis risk loci and targetable pathogenic pathways.

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune liver disease for which effective immunomodulatory therapy is lacking. Here we perform meta-analyses of discovery data sets from genome-wide association studies of European subjects (n=2,764 cases and 10,475 controls) followed by validation genotyping in an independent cohort (n=3,716 cases and 4,261 controls). We discover and validate six previously unknown risk loci for PBC (Pcombined<5 × 10(-8)) and used pathway analysis to identify JAK-STAT/IL12/IL27 signalling and cytokine-cytokine pathways, for which relevant therapies exist

Scoping potential routes to UK civil unrest via the food system: Results of a structured expert elicitation

We report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely typesof potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. Wetake a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a societal event in which 1 in 2000 peoplehave been injured in the UK, which 40% of experts rated as “Possible (20–50%)”, “More likely thannot (50–80%)” or “Very likely (>80%)” over the coming decade. Over a timeframe of 50 years, thisincreased to 80% of experts. The experts considered two food system scenarios and ranked theirplausibility of contributing to the given societal scenario. For a timescale of 10 years, the majorityidentified a food distribution problem as the most likely. Over a timescale of 50 years, the expertswere more evenly split between the two scenarios, but over half thought the most likely route tocivil unrest would be a lack of total food in the UK. However, the experts stressed that the variouscauses of food system disruption are interconnected and can create cascading risks, highlighting theimportance of a systems approach. We encourage food system stakeholders to use these results intheir risk planning and recommend future work to support prevention, preparedness, response andrecovery planning

Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation

Peer reviewed: TrueAcknowledgements: We are very grateful to the other participants not included as authors who took the survey, including Dan Crossley, Sue Davies, Katie Palmer, Anna Taylor, Alex Read and those who did not opt in to being named. Thank you to Adam Amara for helpful discussions about the framing of the study. We are grateful to Ben Dare for assistance in formatting and proofreading. The contents of this paper should not be taken to represent the views of the UK Government or the organisations to which the authors are affiliated.Publication status: PublishedFunder: Met Office Food, Farming and Natural Environment Climate ServiceFunder: Met Office Hadley Centre Climate ProgrammeFunder: DSITWe report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely types of potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. We take a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a societal event in which 1 in 2000 people have been injured in the UK, which 40% of experts rated as “Possible (20–50%)”, “More likely than not (50–80%)” or “Very likely (&gt;80%)” over the coming decade. Over a timeframe of 50 years, this increased to 80% of experts. The experts considered two food system scenarios and ranked their plausibility of contributing to the given societal scenario. For a timescale of 10 years, the majority identified a food distribution problem as the most likely. Over a timescale of 50 years, the experts were more evenly split between the two scenarios, but over half thought the most likely route to civil unrest would be a lack of total food in the UK. However, the experts stressed that the various causes of food system disruption are interconnected and can create cascading risks, highlighting the importance of a systems approach. We encourage food system stakeholders to use these results in their risk planning and recommend future work to support prevention, preparedness, response and recovery planning.</jats:p