Question
Please read the following abstract (adapted from Kumar R, Bandyopadhyay S, Aggarwal AK, Khullar M. Relation between birth weight and blood pressure among 7-8 year old rural children in India. Int J Epidemiol 2004; 33:87-91) and answer the corresponding questions:
Background: Fetal malnutrition has been proposed as a cause of higher blood pressure. However, some studies have shown no or little effect of birth weight on blood pressure.
Methods: A cohort of 214 babies, born to usual residents in 10 villages of Haryana state in India on weekdays from September 1992 to November 1993 whose birth weight had been recorded by a trained field worker within 24 hours of delivery, were followed up during 2000–2001. During the 7–8 year period, 17 children had died and 12 had migrated. A trained public health nurse examined the remaining 185 children and measured their weight, height, and blood pressure.
Results. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) increased significantly with rise in current weight and height. Relationship of SBP with birth weight seems to be a U-shaped distribution. Compared with the middle birth weight tertile group, of the children in the lowest and highest birth weight groups, boys have higher SBP in the higher BMI category (≥ 13.5 kg/m2) and girls have higher SBP in both lower and higher BMI categories. However, multivariate linear regression analysis that included socioeconomic status and current anthropometric measures (weight, height, BMI) revealed that birth weight is not associated with SBP or DBP, and the interaction between birth weight and gender was also not significant for SBP and DBP (p = 0.09).
What is the study design and who is the study population?
What is the study question? What are the exposure(s) and outcomes?
What were the primary causes of loss to follow-up? Do you think that loss to follow-up seems like a problem in the study? What are the implications of this loss to follow-up?
Summarize the results/conclusions of this study based on the abstract.
Source: 250A problem set week 5
