School Notes: School of Public Health
May/June 2011

Abdominal fat linked to discrimination

Middle-aged women who reported frequent instances of mistreatment or discrimination were found to have significantly higher levels of one of the most toxic forms of fat—visceral fat, making them more susceptible to a range of chronic conditions, including heart disease and diabetes, according to a new study by the Yale School of Public Health. While previous studies have identified a relationship between discrimination and physical health, this is believed to be the first study linking such experiences with specific subtypes of abdominal fat.

Led by assistant professor Tené T. Lewis, the researchers studied 402 African American and Caucasian women. Each participant’s exposure to discrimination was assessed with a standardized scale that rated day-to-day experiences over the previous 12 months. The research found that each one-point increase on the discrimination scale was associated with a 13.03-cm2 higher amount of visceral fat.

A genetic cause for some autism

Scientists at the Yale Center for Perinatal, Pediatric, and Environmental Epidemiology have established that a rare genetic variant accounts for about 1 percent of the incidence of autism.

Recently, several rare deletions and duplications of chromosomal regions, known as copy-number variants, have been shown to contribute to autism incidence. Depending on which genes are affected, copy-number variants can be either benign or disease-causing mutations. Variants in a region of Chromosome 16 have repeatedly been linked to autism, but individual studies found copy-number variants in only a small proportion of the patients under study. To estimate what proportion of all autism spectrum disorders may be attributable to this variant, the researchers determined what proportion of autistic individuals carry this copy-number variant. Combining genetic data from 3,613 autistic patients, the researchers determined that 0.76 percent of all ASDs may be caused by duplication or deletion of this region of Chromosome 16.

Online networks have little effect on ER care

While heart attack care has improved dramatically in the past few years, the use of online networks to foster communication and exchange information has played only a minor role in this success. The Door-to-Balloon (D2B) Alliance—a national campaign which sought to reduce the time in which heart attack patients receive lifesaving treatment upon entering the emergency room—has resulted in hundreds of hospitals nationwide markedly reducing treatment times—and saving lives—through a variety of strategies. But the use of a campaign-sponsored online community by staff at participating hospitals has played a negligible role in this success. Researchers surveyed the member hospitals and analyzed their online postings for content and usage patterns to determine the effect on their D2B outcomes. Although 62 percent of the D2B users reported that the online community helped their quality improvement efforts, the network’s impact on treatment times was statistically insignificant.