Economic Status, Education and Empowerment: Implications for Maternal Health Service Utilization in Developing Countries

, and maternal health service utilization in developing countries. are significantly associated with utilization of maternal health services. The odds of having a skilled attendant at delivery for women in the poorest wealth quintile are 94% lower than that for women in the highest wealth quintile and almost 5 times higher for women with complete primary education relative to those less educated. The likelihood of using modern contraception and attending four or more antenatal care visits are 2.01 and 2.89 times, respectively, higher for women with complete primary education than for those less educated. Women with the highest empowerment score are between 1.31 and 1.82 times more likely than those with a null empowerment score to use modern contraception, attend four or more antenatal care visits and have a skilled attendant at birth.Efforts to expand maternal health service utilization can be accelerated by parallel investments in programs aimed at poverty eradication (MDG 1), universal primary education (MDG 2), and women's empowerment (MDG 3)

Cold adaptation drives population genomic divergence in the ecological specialist, Drosophila montana

Funding: UK Natural Environment Research Council (Grant Number(s): NE/L501852/1, NE/P000592/1); Academy of Finland (GrantNumber(s): 267244, 268214, 322980), Ella ja Georg Ehrnroothin Säätiö.Detecting signatures of ecological adaptation in comparative genomics is challenging, but analysing population samples with characterised geographic distributions, such as clinal variation, can help identify genes showing covariation with important ecological variation. Here, we analysed patterns of geographic variation in the cold-adapted species Drosophila montana across phenotypes, genotypes and environmental conditions and tested for signatures of cold adaptation in population genomic divergence. We first derived the climatic variables associated with the geographic distribution of 24 populations across two continents to trace the scale of environmental variation experienced by the species, and measured variation in the cold tolerance of the flies of six populations from different geographic contexts. We then performed pooled whole genome sequencing of these six populations, and used Bayesian methods to identify SNPs where genetic differentiation is associated with both climatic variables and the population phenotypic measurements, while controlling for effects of demography and population structure. The top candidate SNPs were enriched on the X and fourth chromosomes, and they also lay near genes implicated in other studies of cold tolerance and population divergence in this species and its close relatives. We conclude that ecological adaptation has contributed to the divergence of D. montana populations throughout the genome and in particular on the X and fourth chromosomes, which also showed highest interpopulation FST. This study demonstrates that ecological selection can drive genomic divergence at different scales, from candidate genes to chromosome-wide effects.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Genetic Drivers of Epigenetic and Transcriptional Variation in Human Immune Cells

Characterizing the multifaceted contribution of genetic and epigenetic factors to disease phenotypes is a major challenge in human genetics and medicine. We carried out high-resolution genetic, epigenetic, and transcriptomic profiling in three major human immune cell types (CD14$^{+}$ monocytes, CD16$^{+}$ neutrophils, and naive CD4$^{+}$ T cells) from up to 197 individuals. We assess, quantitatively, the relative contribution of $\textit{cis}$-genetic and epigenetic factors to transcription and evaluate their impact as potential sources of confounding in epigenome-wide association studies. Further, we characterize highly coordinated genetic effects on gene expression, methylation, and histone variation through quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping and allele-specific (AS) analyses. Finally, we demonstrate colocalization of molecular trait QTLs at 345 unique immune disease loci. This expansive, high-resolution atlas of multi-omics changes yields insights into cell-type-specific correlation between diverse genomic inputs, more generalizable correlations between these inputs, and defines molecular events that may underpin complex disease risk.This work was predominantly funded by the EU FP7 High Impact Project BLUEPRINT (HEALTH-F5-2011-282510) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR EP1-120608). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 282510 (BLUEPRINT), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, the Max Planck society, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, ‘Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013-2017’, SEV-2012-0208 and Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (INB-ISCIII) PT13/0001/0021 co-funded by FEDER "“Una Manera de hacer Europa”. D.G. is supported by a “la Caixa”-Severo Ochoa pre-doctoral fellowship, M.F. was supported by the BHF Cambridge Centre of Excellence [RE/13/6/30180], K.D. is funded as a HSST trainee by NHS Health Education England, S.E. is supported by a fellowship from La Caixa, V.P. is supported by a FEBS long-term fellowship and N.S.'s research is supported by the Wellcome Trust (Grant Codes WT098051 and WT091310), the EU FP7 (EPIGENESYS Grant Code 257082 and BLUEPRINT Grant Code HEALTH-F5-2011-282510) and the NIHR BRC. The Blood and Transplant Unit (BTRU) in Donor Health and Genomics is part of and funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and is a partnership between the University of Cambridge and NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) in collaboration with the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. The T-cell data was produced by the McGill Epigenomics Mapping Centre (EMC McGill). It is funded under the Canadian Epigenetics, Environment, and Health Research Consortium (CEEHRC) by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and by Genome Quebec (CIHR EP1-120608), with additional support from Genome Canada and FRSQ. T.P. holds a Canada Research Chair

The Properties of Lion Roars and Electron Dynamics in Mirror Mode Waves Observed by the Magnetospheric MultiScale Mission

Mirror mode waves are ubiquitous in the Earth's magnetosheath, in particular behind the quasi‐perpendicular shock. Embedded in these nonlinear structures, intense lion roars are often observed. Lion roars are characterized by whistler wave packets at a frequency ∼100 Hz, which are thought to be generated in the magnetic field minima. In this study, we make use of the high time resolution instruments on board the Magnetospheric MultiScale mission to investigate these waves and the associated electron dynamics in the quasi‐perpendicular magnetosheath on 22 January 2016. We show that despite a core electron parallel anisotropy, lion roars can be generated locally in the range 0.05–0.2fce by the perpendicular anisotropy of electrons in a particular energy range. We also show that intense lion roars can be observed up to higher frequencies due to the sharp nonlinear peaks of the signal, which appear as sharp spikes in the dynamic spectra. As a result, a high sampling rate is needed to estimate correctly their amplitude, and the latter might have been underestimated in previous studies using lower time resolution instruments. We also present for the first‐time 3‐D high time resolution electron velocity distribution functions in mirror modes. We demonstrate that the dynamics of electrons trapped in the mirror mode structures are consistent with the Kivelson and Southwood (1996) model. However, these electrons can also interact with the embedded lion roars: first signatures of electron quasi‐linear pitch angle diffusion and possible signatures of nonlinear interaction with high‐amplitude wave packets are presented. These processes can lead to electron untrapping from mirror modes

Burden of non-communicable disease studies in Europe: a systematic review of data sources and methodological choices

Background: Assessment of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) resulting from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) requires specific calculation methods and input data. The aims of this study were to (i) identify existing NCD burden of disease (BoD) activities in Europe; (ii) collate information on data sources for mortality and morbidity; and (iii) provide an overview of NCD-specific methods for calculating NCD DALYs. Methods: NCD BoD studies were systematically searched in international electronic literature databases and in grey literature. We included all BoD studies that used the DALY metric to quantify the health impact of one or more NCDs in countries belonging to the European Region. Results: A total of 163 BoD studies were retained: 96 (59%) were single-country or sub-national studies and 67 (41%) considered more than one country. Of the single-country studies, 29 (30%) consisted of secondary analyses using existing Global Burden of Disease (GBD) results. Mortality data were mainly derived (49%) from vital statistics. Morbidity data were frequently (40%) drawn from routine administrative and survey datasets, including disease registries and hospital discharge databases. The majority (60%) of national BoD studies reported mortality corrections. Multimorbidity adjustments were performed in 18% of national BoD studies. Conclusion: The number of national NCD BoD assessments across Europe increased over time, driven by an increase in BoD studies that consisted of secondary data analysis of GBD study findings. Ambiguity in reporting the use of NCD-specific BoD methods underlines the need for reporting guidelines of BoD studies to enhance the transparency of NCD BoD estimates across Europe