Aircraft and road traffic noise, insulin resistance, and diabetes: The role of neighborhood socioeconomic status in San Diego County

Systematic review of best practices for GPS data usage, processing, and linkage in health, exposure science and environmental context research

Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is increasingly used in health research to capture individual mobility and contextual and environmental exposures. However, the tools, techniques and decisions for using GPS data vary from study to study, making comparisons and reproducibility challenging.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this systematic review were to (1) identify best practices for GPS data collection and processing; (2) quantify reporting of best practices in published studies; and (3) discuss examples found in reviewed manuscripts that future researchers may employ for reporting GPS data usage, processing and linkage of GPS data in health studies.

DESIGN

A systematic review.

DATA SOURCES

Electronic databases searched (24 October 2023) were PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science (PROSPERO ID: CRD42022322166).

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Included peer-reviewed studies published in English met at least one of the criteria: (1) protocols involving GPS for exposure/context and human health research purposes and containing empirical data; (2) linkage of GPS data to other data intended for research on contextual influences on health; (3) associations between GPS-measured mobility or exposures and health; (4) derived variable methods using GPS data in health research; or (5) comparison of GPS tracking with other methods (eg, travel diary).

DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS

We examined 157 manuscripts for reporting of best practices including wear time, sampling frequency, data validity, noise/signal loss and data linkage to assess risk of bias.

RESULTS

We found that 6% of the studies did not disclose the GPS device model used, only 12.1% reported the per cent of GPS data lost by signal loss, only 15.7% reported the per cent of GPS data considered to be noise and only 68.2% reported the inclusion criteria for their data.

CONCLUSIONS

Our recommendations for reporting on GPS usage, processing and linkage may be transferrable to other geospatial devices, with the hope of promoting transparency and reproducibility in this research.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER

CRD42022322166.

Exposure to volatile organic compounds is a risk factor for diabetes retinopathy: a cross-sectional study

Introduction

A few past experimental studies have indicated that exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) might be a potential risk factor for diabetes retinopathy (DR). However, these findings lack substantial support from extensive epidemiological research. This large-scale cross-sectional study aimed to examine whether exposure to low levels of VOCs in the general population is associated with diabetes mellitus (DM) and DR.

Methods

The analytical data was from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dataset (2011-2018). To minimize the potential impact of gender and age on the findings, propensity score matching was utilized to align the data selection. Relationships between blood VOCs and DM and DR were assessed in a sample of 2,932 adults using the logistic regression models. Additionally, Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR) models and Weighted Quantile Sum (WQS) were conducted for mixture exposure analysis.

Results

The result shows VOCs were positive associated with DM and DR in US adults, as assessed by WQS model, and the calculated odd ratios (ORs) [95% confidence interval (C.I)] were 53.91(34.11 ~ 85.22) and 7.38(3.65 ~ 14.92), respectively. Among the components of VOCs, 1,2-Dibromoethane, Carbon Tetrachloride and 2,5-Dimethylfuran were positive related with the DR, and ORs (95%C.I) were 2.91(2.29 ~ 3.70), 2.86(2.25 ~ 3.65) and 2.19(1.79 ~ 2.94), respectively. BKMR model shows that there was a dose-response relationship between combined VOCs and DR, although the relationship was non-linearly.

Conclusion

This study suggested that exposure to VOCs may increase the risk of DR, which had important public health implications.

Influence of Sociodemographic Variables and Healthy Habits on the Values of Insulin Resistance Indicators in 386,924 Spanish Workers

BACKGROUND

Insulin resistance (IR) is an alteration of the action of insulin in cells, which do not respond adequately to this action, leading to an increase in blood glucose levels. IR produces a very diverse clinical picture and increases the cardiometabolic risk of the population that suffers from it. Among the factors that influence IR are genetics, unhealthy lifestyle habits, overweight, and obesity. The objective of this work was to determine how different sociodemographic variables and healthy habits influence the values of different scales that assess the risk of presenting IR in a group of Spanish workers.

METHODS

An observational, cross-sectional, descriptive study was carried out in 386,924 workers from different Spanish regions. Different sociodemographic variables and lifestyle habits were studied (age, social class, educational level, smoking, Mediterranean diet, physical exercise) along with their association with four scales to evaluate the risk of insulin resistance (TyG index, TyG-BMI, METS-IR, TG/HDL-c). To analyse the quantitative variables, Student's t test was used, while the Chi-squared test was used for the qualitative variables. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed, calculating the odds ratio with its 95% confidence intervals. The accepted level of statistical significance was set at p < 0.05.

RESULTS

In the multivariate analysis, all variables, except educational level, increased the risk of presenting high values on the IR risk scales, especially a sedentary lifestyle and low adherence to the Mediterranean diet.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results demonstrate an association between the practice of regular physical exercise and a reduction in the risk of IR; a strong role of the Mediterranean diet as a protective factor for IR; an association between aging and increased IR, which has also been suggested in other studies; and, finally, a relationship between a low socioeconomic level and an increase in IR.

Association between Noise and Cardiovascular Disease in a Nationwide U.S. Prospective Cohort Study of Women Followed from 1988 to 2018

BACKGROUND

Long-term noise exposure is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD), including acute cardiovascular events such as myocardial infarction and stroke. However, longitudinal cohort studies in the U.S. of long-term noise and CVD are almost exclusively from Europe and few modeled nighttime noise, when an individual is likely at home or asleep, separately from daytime noise. We aimed to examine the prospective association of outdoor long-term nighttime and daytime noise from anthropogenic sources with incident CVD using a U.S.-based, nationwide cohort of women.

METHODS

We linked L 50 nighttime and L 50 daytime anthropogenic modeled noise estimates from a U.S. National Parks Service model (L 50 : sound pressure levels exceeded 50 percent of the time) to geocoded residential addresses of 114,116 participants in the Nurses' Health Study. We used time-varying Cox proportional hazards models to estimate risk of incident CVD, coronary heart disease (CHD), and stroke associated with long-term average (14-y measurement period) noise exposure, adjusted for potential individual- and area-level confounders and CVD risk factors (1988-2018; biennial residential address updates; monthly CVD updates). We assessed effect modification by population density, region, air pollution, vegetation cover, and neighborhood socioeconomic status, and explored mediation by self-reported average nightly sleep duration.

RESULTS

Over 2,548,927 person-years, there were 10,331 incident CVD events. In fully adjusted models, the hazard ratios for each interquartile range increase in L 50 nighttime noise (3.67 dBA) and L 50 daytime noise (4.35 dBA), respectively, were 1.04 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.06) and 1.04 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.07). Associations for total energy-equivalent noise level (L eq ) measures were stronger than for the anthropogenic statistical L 50 noise measures. Similar associations were observed for CHD and stroke. Interaction analyses suggested that associations of L 50 nighttime and L 50 daytime noise with CVD did not differ by prespecified effect modifiers. We found no evidence that inadequate sleep (< 5 h/night) mediated associations of L 50 nighttime noise and CVD.

DISCUSSION

Outdoor L 50 anthropogenic nighttime and daytime noise at the residential address was associated with a small increase in CVD risk in a cohort of adult female nurses. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP12906.