Poverty and neighborhood opportunity effects on neonate DNAm developmental age.

BACKGROUND: Children from families with low socioeconomic status (SES), as determined by income, experience several negative outcomes, such as higher rates of newborn mortality and behavioral issues. Moreover, associations between DNA methylation and low income or poverty status are evident beginning at birth, suggesting prenatal influences on offspring development. Recent evidence suggests neighborhood opportunities may protect against some of the health consequences of living in low income households. The goal of this study was to assess whether neighborhood opportunities moderate associations between household income (HI) and neonate developmental maturity as measured with DNA methylation. METHODS: Umbilical cord blood DNA methylation data was available in 198 mother-neonate pairs from the larger CANDLE cohort. Gestational age acceleration was calculated using an epigenetic clock designed for neonates. Prenatal HI and neighborhood opportunities measured with the Childhood Opportunity Index (COI) were regressed on gestational age acceleration controlling for sex, race, and cellular composition. RESULTS: Higher HI was associated with higher gestational age acceleration (B = .145, t = 4.969, p = 1.56x10-6, 95% CI [.087, .202]). Contrary to expectation, an interaction emerged showing higher neighborhood educational opportunity was associated with lower gestational age acceleration at birth for neonates with mothers living in moderate to high HI (B = -.048, t = -2.08, p = .03, 95% CI [-.092, -.002]). Female neonates showed higher gestational age acceleration at birth compared to males. However, within males, being born into neighborhoods with higher social and economic opportunity was associated with higher gestational age acceleration. CONCLUSION: Prenatal HI and neighborhood qualities may affect gestational age acceleration at birth. Therefore, policy makers should consider neighborhood qualities as one opportunity to mitigate prenatal developmental effects of HI.

Feasibility of remote monitoring for fatal coronary heart disease using Apple Watch ECGs.

Background: Fatal coronary heart disease (FCHD) is often described as sudden cardiac death (affects >4 million people/year), where coronary artery disease is the only identified condition. Electrocardiographic artificial intelligence (ECG-AI) models for FCHD risk prediction using ECG data from wearable devices could enable wider screening/monitoring efforts. Objectives: To develop a single-lead ECG-based deep learning model for FCHD risk prediction and assess concordance between clinical and Apple Watch ECGs. Methods: An FCHD single-lead ("lead I" from 12-lead ECGs) ECG-AI model was developed using 167,662 ECGs (50,132 patients) from the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center. Eighty percent of the data (5-fold cross-validation) was used for training and 20% as a holdout. Cox proportional hazards (CPH) models incorporating ECG-AI predictions with age, sex, and race were also developed. The models were tested on paired clinical single-lead and Apple Watch ECGs from 243 St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study participants. The correlation and concordance of the predictions were assessed using Pearson correlation (R), Spearman correlation (ρ), and Cohen's kappa. Results: The ECG-AI and CPH models resulted in AUC = 0.76 and 0.79, respectively, on the 20% holdout and AUC = 0.85 and 0.87 on the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist external validation data. There was moderate-strong positive correlation between predictions (R = 0.74, ρ = 0.67, and κ = 0.58) when tested on the 243 paired ECGs. The clinical (lead I) and Apple Watch predictions led to the same low/high-risk FCHD classification for 99% of the participants. CPH prediction correlation resulted in an R = 0.81, ρ = 0.76, and κ = 0.78. Conclusion: Risk of FCHD can be predicted from single-lead ECGs obtained from wearable devices and are statistically concordant with lead I of a 12-lead ECG.

GSDMB/ORMDL3 Rare/Common Variants Are Associated with Inhaled Corticosteroid Response among Children with Asthma.

Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are efficacious in the treatment of asthma, which affects more than 300 million people in the world. While genome-wide association studies have identified genes involved in differential treatment responses to ICS in asthma, few studies have evaluated the effects of combined rare and common variants on ICS response among children with asthma. Among children with asthma treated with ICS with whole exome sequencing (WES) data in the PrecisionLink Biobank (91 White and 20 Black children), we examined the effect and contribution of rare and common variants with hospitalizations or emergency department visits. For 12 regions previously associated with asthma and ICS response (DPP10, FBXL7, NDFIP1, TBXT, GLCCI1, HDAC9, TBXAS1, STAT6, GSDMB/ORMDL3, CRHR1, GNGT2, FCER2), we used the combined sum test for the sequence kernel association test (SKAT) adjusting for age, sex, and BMI and stratified by race. Validation was conducted in the Biorepository and Integrative Genomics (BIG) Initiative (83 White and 134 Black children). Using a Bonferroni threshold for the 12 regions tested (i.e., 0.05/12 = 0.004), GSDMB/ORMDL3 was significantly associated with ICS response for the combined effect of rare and common variants (p-value = 0.003) among White children in the PrecisionLink Biobank and replicated in the BIG Initiative (p-value = 0.02). Using WES data, the combined effect of rare and common variants for GSDMB/ORMDL3 was associated with ICS response among asthmatic children in the PrecisionLink Biobank and replicated in the BIG Initiative. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates the power of biobanks of pediatric real-life populations in asthma genomic investigations.

Control of cell proliferation by memories of mitosis.

Mitotic duration is tightly constrained, and extended mitosis is characteristic of problematic cells prone to chromosome missegregation and genomic instability. We show here that mitotic extension leads to the formation of p53-binding protein 1 (53BP1)-ubiquitin-specific protease 28 (USP28)-p53 protein complexes that are transmitted to, and stably retained by, daughter cells. Complexes assembled through a Polo-like kinase 1-dependent mechanism during extended mitosis and elicited a p53 response in G1 that prevented the proliferation of the progeny of cells that experienced an approximately threefold extended mitosis or successive less extended mitoses. The ability to monitor mitotic extension was lost in p53-mutant cancers and some p53-wild-type (p53-WT) cancers, consistent with classification of TP53BP1 and USP28 as tumor suppressors. Cancers retaining the ability to monitor mitotic extension exhibited sensitivity to antimitotic agents.

AI-based preeclampsia detection and prediction with electrocardiogram data.

Introduction: More than 76,000 women die yearly from preeclampsia and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Early diagnosis and management of preeclampsia can improve outcomes for both mother and baby. In this study, we developed artificial intelligence models to detect and predict preeclampsia from electrocardiograms (ECGs) in point-of-care settings. Methods: Ten-second 12-lead ECG data was obtained from two large health care settings: University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist (AHWFB). UTHSC data was split into 80% training and 20% holdout data. The model used a modified ResNet convolutional neural network, taking one-dimensional raw ECG signals comprising 12 channels as an input, to predict risk of preeclampsia. Sub-analyses were performed to assess the predictive accuracy for preeclampsia prediction within 30, 60, or 90 days before diagnosis. Results: The UTHSC cohort included 904 ECGs from 759 females (78.8% African American) with a mean ± sd age of 27.3 ± 5.0 years. The AHWFB cohort included 817 ECGs from 141 females (45.4 African American) with a mean ± sd age of 27.4 ± 5.9 years. The cross-validated ECG-AI model yielded an AUC (95% CI) of 0.85 (0.77-0.93) on UTHSC holdout data, and an AUC (95% CI) of 0.81 (0.77-0.84) on AHWFB data. The sub-analysis of different time windows before preeclampsia prediction resulted in AUCs (95% CI) of 0.92 (0.84-1.00), 0.89 (0.81-0.98) and 0.90 (0.81-0.98) when tested on ECGs 30 days, 60 days and 90 days, respectively, before diagnosis. When assessed on early onset preeclampsia (preeclampsia diagnosed at <34 weeks of pregnancy), the model's AUC (95% CI) was 0.98 (0.89-1.00). Discussion: We conclude that preeclampsia can be identified with high accuracy via application of AI models to ECG data.

Development and validation of an electrocardiographic artificial intelligence model for detection of peripartum cardiomyopathy.

BACKGROUND: This study used electrocardiogram data in conjunction with artificial intelligence methods as a noninvasive tool for detecting peripartum cardiomyopathy. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the efficacy of an artificial intelligence-based heart failure detection model for peripartum cardiomyopathy detection. STUDY DESIGN: We first built a deep-learning model for heart failure detection using retrospective data at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Cases were adult and nonpregnant female patients with a heart failure diagnosis; controls were adult nonpregnant female patients without heart failure. The model was then tested on an independent cohort of pregnant women at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center with or without peripartum cardiomyopathy. We also tested the model in an external cohort of pregnant women at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. Key outcomes were assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. We also repeated our analysis using only lead I electrocardiogram as an input to assess the feasibility of remote monitoring via wearables that can capture single-lead electrocardiogram data. RESULTS: The University of Tennessee Health Science Center heart failure cohort comprised 346,339 electrocardiograms from 142,601 patients. In this cohort, 60% of participants were Black and 37% were White, with an average age (standard deviation) of 53 (19) years. The heart failure detection model achieved an area under the curve of 0.92 on the holdout set. We then tested the ability of the heart failure model to detect peripartum cardiomyopathy in an independent University of Tennessee Health Science Center cohort of pregnant women and an external Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist cohort of pregnant women. The independent University of Tennessee Health Science Center cohort included 158 electrocardiograms from 115 patients; our deep-learning model achieved an area under the curve of 0.83 (0.77-0.89) for this data set. The external Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist cohort involved 80 electrocardiograms from 43 patients; our deep-learning model achieved an area under the curve of 0.94 (0.91-0.98) for this data set. For identifying peripartum cardiomyopathy diagnosed ≥10 days after delivery, the model achieved an area under the curve of 0.88 (0.81-0.94) for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center cohort and of 0.96 (0.93-0.99) for the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist cohort. When we repeated our analysis by building a heart failure detection model using only lead-I electrocardiograms, we obtained similarly high detection accuracies, with areas under the curve of 0.73 and 0.93 for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist cohorts, respectively. CONCLUSION: Artificial intelligence can accurately detect peripartum cardiomyopathy from electrocardiograms alone. A simple electrocardiographic artificial intelligence-based peripartum screening could result in a timelier diagnosis. Given that results with 1-lead electrocardiogram data were similar to those obtained using all 12 leads, future studies will focus on remote screening for peripartum cardiomyopathy using smartwatches that can capture single-lead electrocardiogram data.

Machine Learning Predicts Acute Kidney Injury in Hospitalized Patients with Sickle Cell Disease.

INTRODUCTION: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common among hospitalized patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) and contributes to increased morbidity and mortality. Early identification and management of AKI is essential to preventing poor outcomes. We aimed to predict AKI earlier in patients with SCD using a machine-learning model that utilized continuous minute-by-minute physiological data. METHODS: A total of6,278 adult SCD patient encounters were admitted to inpatient units across five regional hospitals in Memphis, TN, over 3 years, from July 2017 to December 2020. From these, 1,178 patients were selected after filtering for data availability. AKI was identified in 82 (7%) patient encounters, using the 2012 Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria. The remaining 1,096 encounters served as controls. Features derived from five physiological data streams, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure (systolic, diastolic, and mean), captured every minute from bedside monitors were used. An XGBoost classifier was used for classification. RESULTS: Our model accurately predicted AKI up to 12 h before onset with an area under the receiver operator curve (AUROC) of 0.91 (95% CI [0.89-0.93]) and up to 48 h before AKI with an AUROC of 0.82 (95% CI [0.80-0.83]). Patients with AKI were more likely to be female (64.6%) and have history of hypertension, pulmonary hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and pneumonia than the control group. CONCLUSION: XGBoost accurately predicted AKI as early as 12 h before onset in hospitalized SCD patients and may enable the development of innovative prevention strategies.

Externally validated deep learning model to identify prodromal Parkinson's disease from electrocardiogram.

Little is known about electrocardiogram (ECG) markers of Parkinson's disease (PD) during the prodromal stage. The aim of the study was to build a generalizable ECG-based fully automatic artificial intelligence (AI) model to predict PD risk during the prodromal stage, up to 5 years before disease diagnosis. This case-control study included samples from Loyola University Chicago (LUC) and University of Tennessee-Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare (MLH). Cases and controls were matched according to specific characteristics (date, age, sex and race). Clinical data were available from May, 2014 onward at LUC and from January, 2015 onward at MLH, while the ECG data were available as early as 1990 in both institutes. PD was denoted by at least two primary diagnostic codes (ICD9 332.0; ICD10 G20) at least 30 days apart. PD incidence date was defined as the earliest of first PD diagnostic code or PD-related medication prescription. ECGs obtained at least 6 months before PD incidence date were modeled to predict a subsequent diagnosis of PD within three time windows: 6 months-1 year, 6 months-3 years, and 6 months-5 years. We applied a novel deep neural network using standard 10-s 12-lead ECGs to predict PD risk at the prodromal phase. This model was compared to multiple feature engineering-based models. Subgroup analyses for sex, race and age were also performed. Our primary prediction model was a one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) that was built using 131 cases and 1058 controls from MLH, and externally validated on 29 cases and 165 controls from LUC. The model was trained on 90% of the MLH data, internally validated on the remaining 10% and externally validated on LUC data. The best performing model resulted in an external validation AUC of 0.67 when predicting future PD at any time between 6 months and 5 years after the ECG. Accuracy increased when restricted to ECGs obtained within 6 months to 3 years before PD diagnosis (AUC 0.69) and was highest when predicting future PD within 6 months to 1 year (AUC 0.74). The 1D-CNN model based on raw ECG data outperformed multiple models built using more standard ECG feature engineering approaches. These results demonstrate that a predictive model developed in one cohort using only raw 10-s ECGs can effectively classify individuals with prodromal PD in an independent cohort, particularly closer to disease diagnosis. Standard ECGs may help identify individuals with prodromal PD for cost-effective population-level early detection and inclusion in disease-modifying therapeutic trials.

Development of a Deep Learning Model for Retinal Hemorrhage Detection on Head Computed Tomography in Young Children.

Importance: Abusive head trauma (AHT) in children is often missed in medical encounters, and retinal hemorrhage (RH) is considered strong evidence for AHT. Although head computed tomography (CT) is obtained routinely, all but exceptionally large RHs are undetectable on CT images in children. Objective: To examine whether deep learning-based image analysis can detect RH on pediatric head CT. Design, Setting, and Participants: This diagnostic study included 301 patients diagnosed with AHT who underwent head CT and dilated fundoscopic examinations at a quaternary care children's hospital. The study assessed a deep learning model using axial slices from 218 segmented globes with RH and 384 globes without RH between May 1, 2007, and March 31, 2021. Two additional light gradient boosting machine (GBM) models were assessed: one that used demographic characteristics and common brain findings in AHT and another that combined the deep learning model's risk prediction plus the same demographic characteristics and brain findings. Main Outcomes and Measures: Sensitivity (recall), specificity, precision, accuracy, F1 score, and area under the curve (AUC) for each model predicting the presence or absence of RH in globes were assessed. Globe regions that influenced the deep learning model predictions were visualized in saliency maps. The contributions of demographic and standard CT features were assessed by Shapley additive explanation. Results: The final study population included 301 patients (187 [62.1%] male; median [range] age, 4.6 [0.1-35.8] months). A total of 120 patients (39.9%) had RH on fundoscopic examinations. The deep learning model performed as follows: sensitivity, 79.6%; specificity, 79.2%; positive predictive value (precision), 68.6%; negative predictive value, 87.1%; accuracy, 79.3%; F1 score, 73.7%; and AUC, 0.83 (95% CI, 0.75-0.91). The AUCs were 0.80 (95% CI, 0.69-0.91) for the general light GBM model and 0.86 (95% CI, 0.79-0.93) for the combined light GBM model. Sensitivities of all models were similar, whereas the specificities of the deep learning and combined light GBM models were higher than those of the light GBM model. Conclusions and Relevance: The findings of this diagnostic study indicate that a deep learning-based image analysis of globes on pediatric head CTs can predict the presence of RH. After prospective external validation, a deep learning model incorporated into CT image analysis software could calibrate clinical suspicion for AHT and provide decision support for which patients urgently need fundoscopic examinations.

Common data model for sickle cell disease surveillance: considerations and implications.

Objective: Population-level data on sickle cell disease (SCD) are sparse in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is addressing the need for SCD surveillance through state-level Sickle Cell Data Collection Programs (SCDC). The SCDC developed a pilot common informatics infrastructure to standardize processes across states. Materials and Methods: We describe the process for establishing and maintaining the proposed common informatics infrastructure for a rare disease, starting with a common data model and identify key data elements for public health SCD reporting. Results: The proposed model is constructed to allow pooling of table shells across states for comparison. Core Surveillance Data reports are compiled based on aggregate data provided by states to CDC annually. Discussion and Conclusion: We successfully implemented a pilot SCDC common informatics infrastructure to strengthen our distributed data network and provide a blueprint for similar initiatives in other rare diseases.

Fetal High-Risk APOL1 Genotype Increases Risk for Small for Gestational Age in Term Infants Affected by Preeclampsia.

BACKGROUND: Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy cause fetal growth restriction and increased maternal morbidity and mortality, especially in women of African ancestry. Recently, preeclampsia risk was associated with polymorphisms in the apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) gene in women of African ancestry. OBJECTIVES: We assessed APOL1 genotype effects on pregnancies with and without preeclampsia. METHOD: We conducted an unmatched case-control study of 1,358 mother-infant pairs from two independent cohorts of black women. RESULTS: Term preeclampsia cases with high-risk APOL1 genotypes were more likely to be small for gestational age compared to APOL1 low-risk term cases (odds ratio [OR] 2.8) and APOL1 high-risk controls (OR 5.5). Among preterm pregnancies, fetal APOL1 genotype was associated with preeclampsia. CONCLUSIONS: Fetal APOL1 genotype was associated with preeclampsia in preterm infants and with altered fetal growth in term infants. This may indicate APOL1 genotype impacts a spectrum of pregnancy complications mediated by a common pathophysiological event of placental insufficiency.

Exploring celebrity influence on public attitude towards the COVID-19 pandemic: social media shared sentiment analysis.

OBJECTIVES: The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new opportunities for health communication, including an increase in the public's use of online outlets for health-related emotions. People have turned to social media networks to share sentiments related to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we examine the role of social messaging shared by Persons in the Public Eye (ie, athletes, politicians, news personnel, etc) in determining overall public discourse direction. METHODS: We harvested approximately 13 million tweets ranging from 1 January 2020 to 1 March 2022. The sentiment was calculated for each tweet using a fine-tuned DistilRoBERTa model, which was used to compare COVID-19 vaccine-related Twitter posts (tweets) that co-occurred with mentions of People in the Public Eye. RESULTS: Our findings suggest the presence of consistent patterns of emotional content co-occurring with messaging shared by Persons in the Public Eye for the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic influenced public opinion and largely stimulated online public discourse. DISCUSSION: We demonstrate that as the pandemic progressed, public sentiment shared on social networks was shaped by risk perceptions, political ideologies and health-protective behaviours shared by Persons in the Public Eye, often in a negative light. CONCLUSION: We argue that further analysis of public response to various emotions shared by Persons in the Public Eye could provide insight into the role of social media shared sentiment in disease prevention, control and containment for COVID-19 and in response to future disease outbreaks.

Features derived from blood pressure and intracranial pressure predict elevated intracranial pressure events in critically ill children.

Clinicians frequently observe hemodynamic changes preceding elevated intracranial pressure events. We employed a machine learning approach to identify novel and differentially expressed features associated with elevated intracranial pressure events in children with severe brain injuries. Statistical features from physiologic data streams were derived from non-overlapping 30-min analysis windows prior to 21 elevated intracranial pressure events; 200 records without elevated intracranial pressure events were used as controls. Ten Monte Carlo simulations with training/testing splits provided performance benchmarks for 4 machine learning approaches. XGBoost yielded the best performing predictive models. Shapley Additive Explanations analyses demonstrated that a majority of the top 20 contributing features consistently derived from blood pressure data streams up to 240 min prior to elevated intracranial events. The best performing prediction model was using the 30-60 min analysis window; for this model, the area under the receiver operating characteristic window using XGBoost was 0.82 (95% CI 0.81-0.83); the area under the precision-recall curve was 0.24 (95% CI 0.23-0.25), above the expected baseline of 0.1. We conclude that physiomarkers discernable by machine learning are concentrated within blood pressure and intracranial pressure data up to 4 h prior to elevated intracranial pressure events.

Healthcare professionals' perceptions and recommendations regarding adolescent vaccinations in Georgia and Tennessee during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative research.

INTRODUCTION: Despite its benefits, HPV vaccine uptake has been historically lower than other recommended adolescent vaccines in the United States (US). While hesitancy and misinformation have threatened vaccinations for many years, the adverse impacts from COVID-19 pandemic on preventive services have been far-reaching. OBJECTIVES: To explore the perceptions and experiences of adolescent healthcare providers regarding routine vaccination services during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODOLOGY: Between December 2020 and May 2021, in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted via Zoom video conferencing among a purposively selected, diverse group of adolescent healthcare providers (n = 16) within 5 healthcare practices in the US southeastern states of Georgia and Tennessee. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using a rapid qualitative analysis framework. Our analysis was guided by the grounded theory and inductive approach. RESULTS: Participants reported that patient-provider communications; effective use of presumptive languaging; provider's continuing education/training; periodic reminders/recall messages; provider's personal conviction on vaccine safety/efficacy; early initiation of HPV vaccination series at 9 years; community partnerships with community health navigators/vaccine champions/vaccine advocates; use of standardized forms/prewritten scripts/standard operating protocols for patient-provider interactions; and vaccine promotion through social media, brochures/posters/pamphlets as well as outreaches to schools and churches served as facilitators to adolescent HPV vaccine uptake. Preventive adolescent services were adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic at all practices. Participants highlighted an initial decrease in patients due to the pandemic, while some practices avoided the distribution of vaccine informational materials due to sanitary concerns. CONCLUSION: As part of a larger study, we provided contextual information to refine an intervention package currently being developed to improve adolescent preventive care provision in healthcare practices. Our results could inform the implementation of comprehensive intervention strategies that improve HPV vaccination rates. Additionally, lessons learned (e.g. optimizing patient- provider interactions) could be adopted to expand COVID-19 vaccine acceptance on a sizable scale.

Applied artificial intelligence in healthcare: Listening to the winds of change in a post-COVID-19 world.

This editorial article aims to highlight advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in five areas: Collaborative AI, Multimodal AI, Human-Centered AI, Equitable AI, and Ethical and Value-based AI in order to cope with future complex socioeconomic and public health issues.

Fine-tuned Sentiment Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccine-Related Social Media Data: Comparative Study.

BACKGROUND: The emergence of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the necessary separation of populations have led to an unprecedented number of new social media users seeking information related to the pandemic. Currently, with an estimated 4.5 billion users worldwide, social media data offer an opportunity for near real-time analysis of large bodies of text related to disease outbreaks and vaccination. These analyses can be used by officials to develop appropriate public health messaging, digital interventions, educational materials, and policies. OBJECTIVE: Our study investigated and compared public sentiment related to COVID-19 vaccines expressed on 2 popular social media platforms-Reddit and Twitter-harvested from January 1, 2020, to March 1, 2022. METHODS: To accomplish this task, we created a fine-tuned DistilRoBERTa model to predict the sentiments of approximately 9.5 million tweets and 70 thousand Reddit comments. To fine-tune our model, our team manually labeled the sentiment of 3600 tweets and then augmented our data set through back-translation. Text sentiment for each social media platform was then classified with our fine-tuned model using Python programming language and the Hugging Face sentiment analysis pipeline. RESULTS: Our results determined that the average sentiment expressed on Twitter was more negative (5,215,830/9,518,270, 54.8%) than positive, and the sentiment expressed on Reddit was more positive (42,316/67,962, 62.3%) than negative. Although the average sentiment was found to vary between these social media platforms, both platforms displayed similar behavior related to the sentiment shared at key vaccine-related developments during the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: Considering this similar trend in shared sentiment demonstrated across social media platforms, Twitter and Reddit continue to be valuable data sources that public health officials can use to strengthen vaccine confidence and combat misinformation. As the spread of misinformation poses a range of psychological and psychosocial risks (anxiety and fear, etc), there is an urgency in understanding the public perspective and attitude toward shared falsities. Comprehensive educational delivery systems tailored to a population's expressed sentiments that facilitate digital literacy, health information-seeking behavior, and precision health promotion could aid in clarifying such misinformation.

Associations between APOL1 genetic variants and blood pressure in African American mothers and children from a U.S. pregnancy cohort: Modification by air pollution exposures.

INTRODUCTION: Carriage of high-risk APOL1 genetic variants is associated with increased risks for kidney diseases in people of African descent. Less is known about the variants' associations with blood pressure or potential moderators. METHODS: We investigated these associations in a pregnancy cohort of 556 women and 493 children identified as African American. Participants with two APOL1 risk alleles were defined as having the high-risk genotype. Blood pressure in both populations was measured at the child's 4-6 years visit. We fit multivariate linear and Poisson regressions and further adjusted for population stratification to estimate the APOL1-blood pressure associations. We also examined the associations modified by air pollution exposures (particulate matter ≤2.5 µ m in aerodynamic diameter [PM2.5] and nitrogen dioxide) and explored other moderators such as health conditions and behaviors. RESULTS: Neither APOL1 risk alleles nor risk genotypes had a main effect on blood pressure in mothers or children. However, each 2-µg/m3 increase of four-year average PM2.5 was associated with a 16.3 (95%CI: 5.7, 26.9) mmHg higher diastolic blood pressure in mothers with the APOL1 high-risk genotype, while the estimated effect was much smaller in mothers with the low-risk genotype (i.e., 2.9 [95%CI: -3.1, 8.8] mmHg; Pinteraction = 0.01). Additionally, the associations of APOL1 risk alleles and the high-risk genotype with high blood pressure (i.e., SBP and/or DBP ≥ 90th percentile) were stronger in girls vs. boys (Pinteraction = 0.02 and 0.005, respectively). CONCLUSION: This study sheds light on the distribution of high blood pressure by APOL1 genetic variants and informs regulatory policy to protect vulnerable population subgroups.

Predicting Parkinson's Disease and Its Pathology via Simple Clinical Variables.

BACKGROUND: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic, disabling neurodegenerative disorder. OBJECTIVE: To predict a future diagnosis of PD using questionnaires and simple non-invasive clinical tests. METHODS: Participants in the prospective Kuakini Honolulu-Asia Aging Study (HAAS) were evaluated biannually between 1995-2017 by PD experts using standard diagnostic criteria. Autopsies were sought on all deaths. We input simple clinical and risk factor variables into an ensemble-tree based machine learning algorithm and derived models to predict the probability of developing PD. We also investigated relationships of predictive models and neuropathologic features such as nigral neuron density. RESULTS: The study sample included 292 subjects, 25 of whom developed PD within 3 years and 41 by 5 years. 116 (46%) of 251 subjects not diagnosed with PD underwent autopsy. Light Gradient Boosting Machine modeling of 12 predictors correctly classified a high proportion of individuals who developed PD within 3 years (area under the curve (AUC) 0.82, 95%CI 0.76-0.89) or 5 years (AUC 0.77, 95%CI 0.71-0.84). A large proportion of controls who were misclassified as PD had Lewy pathology at autopsy, including 79%of those who died within 3 years. PD probability estimates correlated inversely with nigral neuron density and were strongest in autopsies conducted within 3 years of index date (r = -0.57, p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Machine learning can identify persons likely to develop PD during the prodromal period using questionnaires and simple non-invasive tests. Correlation with neuropathology suggests that true model accuracy may be considerably higher than estimates based solely on clinical diagnosis.

A Digital Personal Health Library for Enabling Precision Health Promotion to Prevent Human Papilloma Virus-Associated Cancers.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) causes the most prevalent sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the United States. Sexually active young adults are susceptible to HPV, accounting for approximately 50% of new STIs. Oncogenic HPV subtypes 16 and 18 are associated with squamous intraepithelial lesions and cancers and are mostly preventable through prophylactic HPV vaccination. Accordingly, this study's objectives are to (1) summarize SDoH barriers and implication for low HPV vaccination rates among young adults (18-26 years), (2) propose a digital health solution that utilizes the PHL to collect, integrate, and manage personalized sexual and health information, and (3) describe the features of the PHL-based app. Through the application of novel techniques from artificial intelligence, specifically knowledge representation, semantic web, and natural language processing, this proposed PHL-based application will compile clinical, biomedical, and SDoH data from multi-dimensional sources. Therefore, this application will provide digital health interventions that are customized to individuals' specific needs and capacities. The PHL-based application could promote management and usage of personalized digital health information to facilitate precision health promotion thereby, informing health decision-making regarding HPV vaccinations, routine HPV/STI testing, cancer screenings, vaccine safety/efficacy/side effects, and safe sexual practices. In addition to detecting vaccine hesitancy, disparities and perceived barriers, this application could address participants' specific needs/challenges with navigating health literacy, technical skills, peer influence, education, language, cultural and spiritual beliefs. Precision health promotion focused on improving knowledge acquisition and information-seeking behaviors, promoting safe sexual practices, increasing HPV vaccinations, and facilitating cancer screenings could be effective in preventing HPV-associated cancers.

Concomitant Ceftriaxone and Intravenous Calcium Therapy in Infants.

OBJECTIVE: To determine if increased mortality could be detected with the administration of ceftriaxone and IV calcium in infants through an analysis of a large repository of electronic health records. METHODS: Patients were split into 3 groups: 1) neonates, 2) infants, and 3) infants <1 year whose age was not specified. Deaths were classified into mutually exclusive categories based on the administration and timing of ceftriaxone and IV calcium. Crude death rates were calculated, and logistic regression modeling was used to calculate adjusted relative odds of death with associated covariates. RESULTS: A total of 259,149 infants were identified. Of 79,038 neonates, the proportion of patients that received ceftriaxone and IV calcium within 48 hours who died was 3.8%, compared with 1.95% (IV calcium), 0.3% (ceftriaxone), 1.54% (IV fluids), and 2.03% (parenteral nutrition). For 102,456 infants, the proportions of deaths were 5.47% (ceftriaxone and IV calcium within 48 hours), 0.45% (IV calcium), 0.15% (ceftriaxone), 0.39% (IV fluids), and 5.5% (parenteral nutrition). Multivariate analysis showed increased odds of death in infants who received ceftriaxone and IV calcium within 48 hours, regardless of age, and propensity score-matched analysis showed a more than 2-fold increased risk for death. CONCLUSIONS: The increased risk for death following ceftriaxone and IV calcium administration was noted not only in neonates, but among older infants as well.