Publications

INTRODUCTION

Young adults in the military are aggressively targeted by tobacco companies and are at high risk of tobacco use. Existing antismoking advertisements developed for the general population might be effective in educating young adults in the military. This study evaluated the effects of different themes of existing antismoking advertisements on perceived harm and intentions to use cigarettes and other tobacco products among Air Force trainees.

METHODS

In a pretest-post-test experiment, 782 Airmen were randomised to view antismoking advertisements in 1 of 6 conditions: anti-industry, health effects+anti-industry, sexual health, secondhand smoke, environment+anti-industry or control. We assessed the effect of different conditions on changes in perceived harm and intentions to use cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, hookah and cigarillos from pretest to post-test with multivariable linear regression models (perceived harm) and zero-inflated Poisson regression model (intentions).

RESULTS

Antismoking advertisements increased perceived harm of various tobacco products and reduced intentions to use. Advertisements featuring negative effects of tobacco on health and sexual performance coupled with revealing tobacco industry manipulations had the most consistent pattern of effects on perceived harm and intentions.

CONCLUSIONS

Antismoking advertisements produced for the general public might also be effective with a young adult military population and could have spillover effects on perceptions of harm and intentions to use other tobacco products besides cigarettes. Existing antismoking advertising may be a cost-effective tool to educate young adults in the military.

Genetic association studies have identified 21 loci associated with atopic dermatitis risk predominantly in populations of European ancestry. To identify further susceptibility loci for this common, complex skin disease, we performed a meta-analysis of >15 million genetic variants in 21,399 cases and 95,464 controls from populations of European, African, Japanese and Latino ancestry, followed by replication in 32,059 cases and 228,628 controls from 18 studies. We identified ten new risk loci, bringing the total number of known atopic dermatitis risk loci to 31 (with new secondary signals at four of these loci). Notably, the new loci include candidate genes with roles in the regulation of innate host defenses and T cell function, underscoring the important contribution of (auto)immune mechanisms to atopic dermatitis pathogenesis.

Nonrandom mating in human populations has important implications for genetics and medicine as well as for economics and sociology. In this study, we performed an integrative analysis of a large cohort of Mexican and Puerto Rican couples using detailed socioeconomic attributes and genotypes. We found that in ethnically homogeneous Latino communities, partners are significantly more similar in their genomic ancestries than expected by chance. Consistent with this, we also found that partners are more closely related--equivalent to between third and fourth cousins in Mexicans and Puerto Ricans--than matched random male-female pairs. Our analysis showed that this genomic ancestry similarity cannot be explained by the standard socioeconomic measurables alone. Strikingly, the assortment of genomic ancestry in couples was consistently stronger than even the assortment of education. We found enriched correlation of partners' genotypes at genes known to be involved in facial development. We replicated our results across multiple geographic locations. We discuss the implications of assortment and assortment-specific loci on disease dynamics and disease mapping methods in Latinos.

The diagnosis and risk stratification of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) primarily rely on morphologic analysis and assessment of karyotype by chromosome banding analysis. For decades, standard AML induction therapy has utilized the combination of anthracyclines and cytarabine. Despite the use of postremission therapy, less than half of patients with AML will be cured of their disease. Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation combines cytoreductive chemotherapy with adoptive immunotherapy and may cure patients who fail chemotherapy alone. Recent advances in next-generation sequencing have yielded important insights into the molecular landscape of AML with normal karyotype. Integrated prognostic models incorporating somatic mutation analyses may outperform prediction based on conventional clinical and cytogenetic factors alone. We review the evolution of risk profiling of AML from the cytogenetic to molecular era and describe the implications for AML diagnosis and postremission therapy.