Lifecourse epidemiology studies long-term effects of social and environmental exposures
on health and disease.
1
,
2
A key challenge to the three models of lifecourse epidemiology is translating its
empirical evidence into intervention planning, especially among populations where
the critical social and environmental exposures happened in the past or when they
represent difficult groups with which to intervene. In this article, molecular pathological
epidemiology (MPE), which was first described in 2010, is reviewed.
3
MPE reflects the recent technologic advances in molecular pathology, and has revealed
that a disease (e.g., colorectal cancer) that has been studied as a single entity
actually consists of a multitude of subtypes with differing biological features (e.g.,
combination of KRAS mutation +/−, BRAF mutation +/−, and more). Because each subtype theoretically is associated with a
different set of epidemiologic risk factors, the social and environmental determinants
of health through the lifecourse need to be re-examined from the “unique disease principle”
perspective of MPE. Investigating molecular heterogeneity of disease and disease development
processes can help epidemiologists identify modifiable factors of the ongoing disease
development process caused by early-life exposures among adult populations.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to American Journal of Preventive MedicineAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Life course epidemiology.J Epidemiol Community Health. 2003; 57: 778-783
- Social epidemiology: social determinants of health in the United States: are we losing ground?.Annu Rev Public Health. 2009; 30: 27-41
- Molecular pathological epidemiology of epigenetics: emerging integrative science to analyze environment, host, and disease.Mod Pathol. 2013; 26: 465-484
- The successes and challenges of life course epidemiology: a commentary on Gibb, Fergusson and Horwood (2012).Soc Sci Med. 2012; 75: 2124-2128
- Prenatal famine and adult health.Annu Rev Public Health. 2011; 32: 237-262
- Neighborhood effects on the long-term well-being of low-income adults.Science. 2012; 337: 1505-1510
- Interdisciplinary education to integrate pathology and epidemiology: towards molecular and population-level health science.Am J Epidemiol. 2012; 176: 659-667
- Molecular pathological epidemiology of colorectal neoplasia: an emerging transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary field.Gut. 2011; 60: 397-411
- Molecular pathways involved in colorectal cancer: implications for disease behavior and prevention.Int J Mol Sci. 2013; 14: 16365-16385
- How many molecular subtypes? Implications of the unique tumor principle in personalized medicine.Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2012; 12: 621-628
Lochhead P, Chan AT, Nishihara R, et al. Etiologic field effect: reappraisal of the field effect concept in cancer predisposition and progression. Mod Pathol 2014 Jun 13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/modpathol.2014.81. [Epub ahead of print].
- Epidemiological transition of colorectal cancer in developing countries: environmental factors, molecular pathways, and opportunities for prevention.World J Gastroenterol. 2014; 20: 6055-6072
- Discovery of colorectal cancer PIK3CA mutation as potential predictive biomarker: power and promise of molecular pathological epidemiology.Oncogene. 2014; 33: 2949-2955
Article Info
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
