In this introduction to volume 31 of Epidemiologic Reviews, the author traces the history of health disparities research in epidemiology and situates the 10 review articles comprising this edition within this history. With the aid of a conceptual model describing the key determinants of health disparities, he offers several suggestions for improving future epidemiologic research on health dispa...

We are all living in the era of globalization and, like it or not, it is going to change the way we practise epidemiology, the kinds of questions we ask and the methods we use to answer them. However, the methods, and ways of thinking about the health of populations, that will be required for epidemiology in the 21st century are in some instances quite different from the standard epidemiologica...

We have assembled this mini-monograph on adult lead exposure to provide guidance to clinicians and public health professionals, to summarize recent thinking on lead biomarkers and their relevance to epidemiologic research, and to review two key lead-related outcomes, namely, cardiovascular and cognitive. The lead standards of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration are woefully o...

BACKGROUND Little is known about the transition from substance abuse to substance dependence. OBJECTIVES This study aims to estimate the cumulative probability of developing dependence and to identify predictors of transition to dependence among individuals with lifetime alcohol, cannabis, or cocaine abuse. METHODS Analyses were done for the subsample of individuals with lifetime alcohol ab...

The transition from independence to disability in older adults is characterized by detectable changes in body composition and physical function. Epidemiologic studies have shown that weight loss, reduced caloric intake and the reduced intake of specific nutrients are associated with such changes. The mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear, and different hypotheses have been sug...

Low maternal education is consistently associated with increased risk of preterm delivery (PTD). The interpregnancy interval (IPI), defined as the time between the date of a previous birth and the conception date of the index pregnancy, may mediate this relationship. We estimated controlled direct effects to assess whether hypothetical interventions designed to increase IPIs would reduce the ed...

The Physician Payment Review Commission has examined the potential of profiling physician practice patPR. Lee and A.B. Bindman, Institute for Healty Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco. P.R. Lee, D.W. Shapiro and R.D. Lasker, Physician Payment Review Commission. A.B. Bindman, Division of General Internal Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital. terns within the context oi c...

Keywords sports medicine, evidence-based regression analysis, effect modifier, epidemiologic, mediation analysis

The existing evidence on cancer etiology has mostly come from epidemiological studies conducted in the developed world. Now there is an urgent need to gather information on cancer risks in developing countries. Due to recent economic, demographic and health transitions, cancers are on the rise in many developing countries. Future epidemiological studies in these countries should address changin...