Epidemiology: Back to the Future

In 2018, the Society for Epidemiologic Research and its partner journal, the American Journal of Epidemiology, assembled a working group to develop a set of papers devoted to the "future of epidemiology." These 14 papers covered a wide range of topic areas and perspectives, from thoughts on our profession, teaching, and methods to critical areas of substantive research. The authors of those papers considered current challenges and future opportunities for research and education. In light of past commentaries, 4 papers also include reflections on the discipline at present and in the future

Trends in human birth weight across two successive generations

OBJECTIVE: To determine the correlation between parental and offspring birthweight (BW) in India. METHODS: The study involved two birth cohorts of successive generations. The parental cohort comprised of 472 fathers and 422 mothers from an earlier study. Details of their anthropometry at birth and in adulthood were available. 1525 children born to them comprised the offspring cohort. BW was obtained from hospital records for the offspring cohort. Odds ratios and regression coefficients were calculated to estimate the risks of a low birth weight (LBW) parent producing a LBW baby and quantitate the effects after adjusting for confounders. RESULTS: A LBW mother had a 2.8 times risk (95%CI 1.2-6.4) of delivering a LBW baby (p=0.02) and a LBW father was twice as likely to produce a LBW baby (OR 2.2; 95%CI 1.0 - 4.8; p=0.05). Every 100g increase in maternal BW was associated with an increase in offspring BW of 14 g; the equivalent figure for paternal BW was 18.1g (p< 0.001 for both). Between the generations, the incidence of LBW decreased from 19.7% to 17.2% (p=0.1). Mean BW increased in males (2846 g vs 2861 g; p=0.59) but not in females (2790 g vs 2743 g; p=0.08). CONCLUSION: Both maternal and paternal BW are strong determinants of offspring BW. The effect of mothers' BW on offspring BW is weaker than that seen in developed nations. Stronger intrauterine constraint exhibited by Indian women secondary to a higher prevalence of growth restriction in utero may be responsible. Paternal effects may be governed by paternal genes inherited by the offspring