BACKGROUND Previous research has shown exposure to air pollution increases the risk of adverse birth outcomes, although the effects of residential proximity to significant industrial point sources are less defined. The objective of the current study was to determine whether yearly reported releases from major industrial point sources are associated with adverse birth outcomes. METHODS Materna...

INTRODUCTION Skilled birth attendance is one of the key factors in improving maternal and neonatal health but coverage is frequently less than 50% in many African and Asian countries, especially in rural areas. This article reports the findings on skilled birth attendance in a remote area with a large nomadic population in northern Tanzania. METHODS In a secondary analysis of data from a retr...

Several papers reported associations between airborne fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and birth weight, though findings are inconsistent across studies. Conflicting results might be due to (1) different PM2.5 chemical structure across locations, and (2) various exposure assignment methods across studies even among the studies that use ambient monitors to assess exposure. We investigated associa...

With Gaia parallaxes it is possible to study the stellar populations associated with individual Galactic supernova remnants (SNR) estimate mass of exploding star. Here we analyze luminous stars near Vela pulsar and SNR find that its progenitor was probably (>90%) low (8.1-10.3Msun). The presence O star gamma2 Vel a little over 100 pc from primary ambiguity, as including in analysis volume signi...

BACKGROUND Atmospheric pollution is a major public health concern. It can affect placental function and restricts fetal growth. However, scientific knowledge remains too limited to make inferences regarding causal associations between maternal exposure to air pollution and adverse effects on pregnancy. This study evaluated the association between low birth weight (LBW) and maternal exposure dur...

Systematic nonrandom mating in populations results in genetic stratification and is predominantly caused by geographic separation, providing the opportunity to infer individuals' birthplace from genetic data. Such inference has been demonstrated for individuals' country of birth, but here we use data from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 (NFBC1966) to investigate the characteristics of ge...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Despite improvements in congenital heart disease (CHD) survival over the past 4 decades, ethnic disparities persist. Several studies have shown higher postoperative CHD adjusted mortality in black and Hispanic children. Others noted that non-English-speaking language at home was associated with appointment noncompliance, which the parents attributed to misunderstanding ...

OBJECTIVES To (i) summarize the methods undertaken to measure physical accessibility as the spatial separation between women and health services, and (ii) establish the extent to which distance to skilled care for childbirth affects utilization in Sub-Saharan Africa. METHOD We defined spatial separation as the distance/travel time between women and skilled care services. The use of skilled ca...

BACKGROUND Encouraging institutional birth is an important component of reducing maternal mortality in low-resource settings. This study aims to identify and understand the determinants of persistently low institutional birth in rural Nepal, with the goal of informing future interventions to reduce high rates of maternal mortality. METHODS Postpartum women giving birth in the catchment area p...

Using estimates of the distance and proper motion of Geminga and the constraints on its radial velocity posed by the shape of its bow shock, we investigate its birth place by tracing its space motion backwards in time. Our results exclude the λ Ori association as the origin site because of the large distance between both objects at any time. Our simulations place the birth region at approximate...