Scientists bring socioeconomic status at the forefront of epidemic modelling

Study shows how neglecting income, education, and ethnicity affects disease spread predictions on COVID-19 data

11-Oct-2024
Queen Mary University of London

An international team of researchers have developed an innovative approach to epidemic modeling that could transform how scientists and policymakers predict the spread of infectious diseases. Led by Dr Nicola Perra, Reader in Applied Mathematics, the study published in Science Advances introduces a new framework that incorporates socioeconomic status (SES) factors — such as income, education, and ethnicity — into epidemic models. 

"Epidemic models typically focus on age-stratified contact patterns, but that’s only part of the picture," said Dr Perra. "Our new framework acknowledges that other factors—like income and education—play a significant role in how people interact and respond to public health measures. By including these SES variables, we’re able to create more realistic models that better reflect real-world epidemic outcomes." 

Dr Perra and his collaborators have addressed this critical oversight with a framework that uses "generalised contact matrices" to stratify contacts across multiple dimensions, including SES. This allows for a more detailed and realistic representation of how diseases propagate through different population groups, especially those facing socioeconomic disadvantage. The study demonstrates how failing to account for these variables can lead to large misrepresentations in epidemic predictions, undermining both public health strategies and policy decisions. 

The team’s approach draws on both formal mathematical derivations and empirical data. Their study establishes that ignoring SES dimensions can lead to underestimations of key parameters, such as the basic reproductive number (R₀), which measures the average number of secondary infections caused by a single infected individual. Using synthetic data and real-world data from Hungary, collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers show how including SES indicators provides more accurate estimates of disease burden and reveals crucial disparities in outcomes across different socioeconomic groups. 

"The COVID-19 pandemic was a stark reminder that the burden of infectious diseases is not borne equally across the population," said Dr Perra. "Socioeconomic factors played a decisive role in how different groups were affected, and yet most of the epidemic models we rely on today still fail to explicitly incorporate these critical dimensions. Our framework brings these variables to the forefront, allowing for more comprehensive and actionable insights." 

The researchers demonstrated how their framework could quantify variations in adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as social distancing and mask-wearing across different SES groups. They found that neglecting these factors in models not only misrepresents the spread of diseases but also obscures the effectiveness of public health measures. Their analysis of Hungarian data further highlighted how SES-driven heterogeneities in contact patterns can lead to substantial differences in disease outcomes between groups, underscoring the need for more targeted interventions. 

"Our findings suggest that future contact surveys should expand beyond traditional variables like age and include more nuanced socioeconomic data," Dr Perra added. "The inclusion of these factors could dramatically improve the precision of epidemic models and, by extension, the effectiveness of health policies." 

The study underscores an urgent need for more comprehensive epidemic modeling frameworks as societies continue to grapple with the lingering impacts of COVID-19 and prepare for future pandemics. By expanding beyond the conventional focus on age and context, this new approach opens the door to a more detailed understanding of disease transmission and offers a powerful tool for addressing health inequities. 

This work was conducted in collaboration with Adriana Manna (Central European University), Dr Lorenzo D’Amico (ISI Foundation), Dr Michele Tizzoni (University of Trento), and Dr Márton Karsai (Central European University and Rényi Institute of Mathematics).  

---

Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adk4606 

Article Title

Generalized Contact Matrices Allow Integrating Socio-economic Variables into Epidemic Models

Article Publication Date

11-Oct-2024

Evolution in real time

ISTA scientists predict—and witness—evolution in a 30-year marine snail experiment

Institute of Science and Technology Austria

 

image: 

Crab-ecotype snails (1992) evolved to strikingly resemble the lost Wave-ecotype snails on a skerry.

view more 

Credit: ISTA, images by Kerstin Johannesson

It is 1988. The Koster archipelago, a group of islands off the Swedish west coast near the border with Norway, is hit by a particularly dense bloom of toxic algae, wiping out marine snail populations. But why would anyone care about the fate of a bunch of snails on a three-square-meter rock in the open sea? As it turns out, this event would open up the opportunity to predict and see evolution unfolding before our eyes.

Before, the islands and their small intertidal skerries—rocky islets—were home to dense and diverse populations of marine snails of the species Littorina saxatilis. While the snail populations of the larger islands—some of which were reduced to less than 1%—were restored within two to four years, several skerries could not seem to recover from this harsh blow.

Marine ecologist Kerstin Johannesson from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, saw a unique opportunity. In 1992, she re-introduced L. saxatilis snails to their lost skerry habitat—starting an experiment that would have far-reaching implications more than 30 years later. It allowed an international collaboration led by researchers from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), Nord University, Norway, the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and The University of Sheffield, UK, to predict and witness evolution in the making.

Wave snails and Crab snails

L. saxatilis is a common species of marine snails found throughout the North Atlantic shores, where different populations evolved traits adapted to their environments. These traits include size, shell shape, shell color, and behavior. The differences among these traits are particularly striking between the so-called Crab- and Wave-ecotype. These snails have evolved repeatedly in different locations, either in environments exposed to crab predation or on wave-exposed rocks away from crabs. Wave snails are typically small, and have a thin shell with specific colors and patterns, a large and rounded aperture, and bold behavior. Crab snails, on the other hand, are strikingly larger, have thicker shells without patterns, and a smaller and more elongated aperture. Crab snails also behave more warily in their predator-dominated environment.

The Swedish Koster archipelago is home to these two different L. saxatilis snail types, often neighboring one another on the same island or only separated by a few hundred meters across the sea. Before the toxic algal bloom of 1988, Wave snails inhabited the skerries, while nearby shores were home to both Crab and Wave snails. This close spatial proximity would prove crucial.

Rediscovering old traits

Seeing that the Wave snail population of the skerries was entirely wiped out due to the toxic algae, Johannesson decided in 1992 to reintroduce snails to one of these skerries, but of the Crab-ecotype. With one to two generations each year, she rightfully expected the Crab snails to adapt to their new environment before scientists’ eyes. “Our colleagues saw evidence of the snails’ adaptation already within the first decade of the experiment,” says Diego Garcia Castillo, a graduate student in the Barton Group at ISTA and one of the authors leading the study. “Over the experiment’s 30 years, we were able to predict robustly what the snails will look like and which genetic regions will be implicated. The transformation was both rapid and dramatic,” he adds.

However, the snails did not evolve these traits entirely from scratch. Co-corresponding author Anja Marie Westram, a former postdoc at ISTA and currently a researcher at Nord University, explains, “Some of the genetic diversity was already available in the starting Crab population but at low prevalence. This is because the species had experienced similar conditions in the recent past. The snails’ access to a large gene pool drove this rapid evolution.”

Diversity is key to adaptation

The team examined three aspects over the years of the experiment: the snails’ phenotype, individual gene variabilities, and larger genetic changes affecting entire regions of the chromosomes called “chromosomal inversions”.

In the first few generations, the researchers witnessed an interesting phenomenon called “phenotypic plasticity”: Very soon after their transplantation, the snails modified their shape to adjust to their new environment. But the population also quickly started to change genetically. The researchers could predict the extent and direction of the genetic changes, especially for the chromosomal inversions. They showed that the snails’ rapid and dramatic transformation was possibly due to two complementary processes: A fast selection of traits already present at a low frequency in the transplanted Crab snail population and gene flow from neighboring Wave snails that could have simply rafted over 160 meters to reach the skerry.

Evolution in the face of pollution and climate change

In theory, scientists know that a species with high enough genetic variation can adapt more rapidly to change. However, few studies aimed to experiment with evolution over time in the wild. “This work allows us to have a closer look at repeated evolution and predict how a population could develop traits that have evolved separately in the past under similar conditions,” says Garcia Castillo.

The team now wants to learn how species can adapt to modern environmental challenges such as pollution and climate change. “Not all species have access to large gene pools and evolving new traits from scratch is tediously slow. Adaptation is very complex and our planet is also facing complex changes with episodes of weather extremes, rapidly advancing climate change, pollution, and new parasites,” says Westram. She hopes this work will drive further research on maintaining species with large and diverse genetic makeups. “Perhaps this research helps convince people to protect a range of natural habitats so that species do not lose their genetic variation,” Westram concludes.

Now, the snails Johannesson brought to the skerry in 1992 have reached a thriving population of around 1,000 individuals.

Two ecotypes of Littorina saxatilis marine snails, adapted to different environments. 

The Crab ecotype (left) is larger and wary of predators. The Wave ecotype (right) is smaller and has bold behavior.

Credit

David Carmelet

The donor shore of the transplanted snail population (foreground) and the experimental skerry (little dot in the sea to the right).

The experimental skerry in the Koster archipelago off the Swedish west coast. 

Crab-ecotype L. saxatilis snails were brought here in 1992 after toxic algae wiped out the original Wave-ecotype population.

Credit

Kerstin Johannesson

Kerstin Johannesson on the experimental skerry 

Johannesson is a marine ecologist at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Credit

Bo Johannesson

First author Diego Garcia Castillo, graduate student at ISTA, visiting the experimental skerry.

Credit

Pierre Barry

Swedish L. saxatilis marine snails.

Credit

Daria Shipilina

Information on animal studies

To better understand fundamental processes, for example, in the fields of neuroscience, immunology, or genetics, the use of animals in research is indispensable. No other methods, such as in silico models, can serve as an alternative. The animals are raised, kept, and treated according to the strict regulations of the respective countries. The research with animals was conducted in Sweden.

About ISTA

The Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) is a PhD-granting research institution located in Klosterneuburg, 18 km from the center of Vienna, Austria. ISTA employs professors on a tenure-track model, post-doctoral researchers and PhD students. The Graduate School of ISTA offers fully funded PhD positions to highly qualified candidates with a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in biology, mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, and related areas. While dedicated to the principle of curiosity-driven research, ISTA aims to deliver scientific findings to society through technological transfer and science education. President of the Institute is Martin Hetzer, a renowned molecular biologist and former Senior Vice President at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, USA. www.ista.ac.at

---

Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adp2102 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Predicting rapid adaptation in time from adaptation in space: A 30-year field experiment in marine snails

Article Publication Date

11-Oct-2024

 

Coffee during pregnancy safe for baby’s brain development

A University of Queensland-led study has failed to find any strong links between drinking coffee during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental difficulties in children

University of Queensland

A University of Queensland-led study has failed to find any strong links between drinking coffee during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental difficulties in children, but researchers are advising expectant mothers to continue following medical guidelines on caffeine consumption.  

Dr Gunn-Helen Moen and PhD student Shannon D’Urso from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) led an in-depth genetic analysis of data from tens of thousands of families in Norway.  

“Scandinavians are some of the biggest coffee consumers in the world, drinking at least 4 cups a day, with little stigma about drinking coffee during pregnancy,” Dr Moen said.

“Our study used genetic data from mothers, fathers and babies as well as questionnaires about the parents’ coffee consumption before and during pregnancy.

“The participants also answered questions about their child’s development until the age of 8, including their social, motor, and language skills.”

“Our analysis found no link between coffee consumption during pregnancy and children’s neurodevelopmental difficulties.”

The researchers said physiological changes during pregnancy prevent caffeine breaking down easily and it can cross the placenta and reach the foetus, where there are no enzymes to metabolise it.

Caffeine accumulation was thought to impact the developing foetal brain, but Dr Moen said previous observational studies couldn’t account for other environmental factors such as alcohol, cigarette smoke or poor diet.

“We used a method called Mendelian randomisation which uses genetic variants that predict coffee drinking behaviour and can separate out the effect of different factors during pregnancy,” she said.

“It mimics a randomised controlled trial without subjecting pregnant mothers and their babies to any ill effects.

“The benefit of this method is the effects of caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes and diet can be separated in the data, so we can look solely at the impact of caffeine on the pregnancy.”

The researchers use genetic analysis to understand complex traits and diseases especially in early life, with a previous study by Dr Moen showing that drinking coffee in pregnancy did not affect birth weight, risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.

They emphasise the importance of following advice from healthcare providers to limit caffeine consumption during pregnancy, as caffeine may influence other pregnancy outcomes.

The researchers are now looking to apply similar analyses to understand more about genetic and environmental causes of neurodiversity, and the effect of it from other factors on brain development during pregnancy.

The research team included international collaborators in Norway including Professor Alexandra Havdahl from PsychGen Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo and England as well as IMB’s Caroline Brito Nunes, Dr Daniel Hwang and Professor David Evans. The research was conducted using data from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).

The research was published in Psychological Medicine.

---

Journal

Psychological Medicine

DOI

10.1017/S0033291724002216 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Mendelian Randomization Analysis of Maternal Coffee Consumption During Pregnancy on Offspring Neurodevelopmental Difficulties in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa)

Article Publication Date

9-Oct-2024

 

Research news from the Ecological Society of America’s journals

Ecological Society of America

 

image: 

A new study in Ecosphere suggests that marine animals called zoanthids, seen here blanketing dead coral, can deter reef-eroding urchins (visible at lower right).

view more 

Credit: Patrick Saldaña

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) presents a roundup of four research articles recently published across its esteemed journals. Widely recognized for fostering innovation and advancing ecological knowledge, ESA’s journals consistently feature illuminating and impactful studies. This compilation of papers explores the unique bai ecosystems of central Africa, a potential strategy for managing forests in a more flammable world, the protection of dead corals by secondary reef colonizers and a new approach to examining cause-and-effect relationships in ecology.

 

From Ecology:

Building a baseline for Africa’s bai ecosystems
Author contact: Evan G. Hockridge (evanhockridge@g.harvard.edu)  

Clearings known as “bais” dot the enormous expanse of rainforest extending across central Africa. Although they offer critical habitat for forest elephants, lowland gorillas and a host of other iconic African species, little is known about these canopy gaps. Remote sensing, field surveys and camera traps enabled researchers to document the distribution, abundance and physical properties of these ecosystems in the Congolese Odzala-Kokoua National Park, as well as the plants and animals that frequent them. While more numerous than expected, bais were also generally found to be small, highly clustered and restricted to low-lying areas, thus constituting a rare and unusual forest habitat. Moreover, two different types were identified based on distinguishing features like distinctive soil properties and ecological communities. Given their importance to the biodiversity of the dense forests of Central Africa, these unique ecosystems should be considered areas of high conservation priority, contend the authors.

Read the article: Spatial ecology, biodiversity, and abiotic determinants of Congo’s bai ecosystem

 

From Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment:

Defueling forests may help mitigate future fire
Author contact: Matthew D. Hurteau (mhurteau@unm.edu)  

More frequent applications of prescribed burns could help reduce the growing threat of fire for conifer forests in the western U.S. under a warmer and dryer climate, propose the authors of this study. A legacy of fire exclusion has left many western forests with denser stands than would have occurred historically. Moreover, climate change, pests and pathogens are killing trees in huge numbers, resulting in forests with increasing numbers of dead and stressed trees — woody material that can fuel intense wildfires. Analysis of data collected from prescribed burns in California’s Teakettle Experimental Forest following a 4-year drought suggested that boosting burn rates might help to alleviate the increasing flammability of forests by reducing the volume of accumulated dead fuels. The authors note that prescribed burns are not a silver bullet for forest managers, who will face additional challenges as the climate continues to warm. But the approach has global relevance for the management of forests experiencing similar changes in environmental conditions.

Read the article: Managing fire-prone forests in a time of decreasing carbon carrying capacity

 

From Ecosphere:

Living zoanthid blankets protect dead corals
Author contact: Patrick H. Saldaña (psaldana@ufl.edu)

Dead corals may not be as extravagantly vibrant as live corals, but these ghostly structures still benefit tropical reef inhabitants by serving as physical habitat for other organisms. Yet dead reefs are at greater risk of damage by grazers, including booming populations of urchins. Experiments conducted on reefs off Panama’s Caribbean coast suggested that mats of a species of zoanthid — relatives of sea anemones — can form a protective coating over dead reefs, shielding them from further urchin-induced ruin. Moreover, so effective are these zoanthids “carpets” at deterring urchins that erosion of dead reefs was reduced by up to 50% over a 2-year period in areas where they occurred. The results of their experiments lead the authors to conclude that, by helping to preserve the physical integrity of dead coral structures, coral-associated colonizers like zoanthids may play critical yet largely unrecognized roles in coral reef renewal and recovery.    

Read the article: Friend of the dead: Zoanthids enhance the persistence of dead coral reef framework under high consumer pressure

 

From Ecological Monographs:

A new framework for investigating cause-and-effect in ecological systems
Author contact: James B. Grace (gracej@usgs.gov)

Correlation does not imply causation, as the saying goes, and this is a particular problem in ecology. In many scientific disciplines, cause-and-effect is explored experimentally — alter a variable and see what happens. But when it comes to answering some ecological questions, such as temperature’s role in shaping a plant’s distribution across a continent, controlled manipulations can be impractical or even impossible. In these cases, ecologists often rely on data collected through observation. As the author of this study notes, however, conventional analytical methods are relatively ineffective in teasing out causality from observational data. To address this shortcoming, a novel framework is introduced that rigorously incorporates mechanistic understanding — for instance, the intensity of cold snaps and how much a hard freeze damages a tree’s leaves — to determine causality. The author proposes that adopting a multi-pronged approach to investigating cause-and-effect relationships will greatly enhance understanding of how ecological systems work.

Read the article: An integrative paradigm for building causal knowledge

 

###

 

The Ecological Society of America, founded in 1915, is the world’s largest community of professional ecologists and a trusted source of ecological knowledge, committed to advancing the understanding of life on Earth. The 8,000 member Society publishes seven journals including a membership bulletin and broadly shares ecological information through policy, media outreach and education initiatives. Visit the ESA website at https://www.esa.org

 

The Society’s Annual Meeting attracts 4,000 attendees and features the most recent advances in ecological science. The program and recorded content from last month’s 2024 Meeting in Long Beach, California are available for viewing until summer 2025; members of the press and institutional press officers are invited to contact Public Affairs Manager Mayda Nathan mayda@esa.org for free access.

 

Follow ESA on social media:
Twitter/X – @esa_org
Instagram – @ecologicalsociety
Facebook – @esa.org

 

Novel research suggests quitting smoking may help alleviate opioid crisis

A trailblazing study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine details the association between smoking and opioid use, emphasizing the need for integrated treatment programs

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Elsevier

Ann Arbor, October 9, 2024 – Smoking is recognized as a leading cause of preventable disability and death. New research shows that as smokers increase their daily number of cigarettes, they report higher rates of chronic pain, more prescription opioid use, severe work limitations due to pain, and poor mental health. A novel study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, details the results of an analysis of nationally representative data from the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), revealing a strong link between smoking and opioid use and emphasizing the need for integrated treatment programs.

Summarizing key findings, the study’s authors William Encinosa, PhD, Didem Bernard, PhD, and R. Burciaga Valdez, PhD, MHSA, Division of Research and Modeling, Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University, say, "Our research shows that adults who smoke 11-20 cigarettes per day use five times more prescription opioids than adults who never smoked. Adults who smoke more than a pack of cigarettes a day use almost three times as many opioids than adults who smoke 11-20 cigarettes per day. Thus, integrating smoking cessation programs into substance use treatments would be a prudent way of reducing prescription opioid use."

The team of researchers analyzed data from 2013 to 2021 from MEPS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey. Findings show that although only 37% of the population has ever smoked, smokers account for 69% of annual prescription opioid use. Heavy smokers, just 12% of the population, use as many opioids as the 63% who have never smoked. Smokers also report higher rates of chronic pain, severe work limitations due to pain, and poor mental health.

This paper reports the first nationally representative estimates of the association between smoking, pain, and opioid use and how it has persisted from the height of opioid prescription use in 2013 to the recent low in 2021.

Opioid dispensing rates have declined from 81.3 prescriptions per 100 people in 2012 to 43.3 per 100 people in 2020. Many policy factors have led to this decline in opioid prescriptions, such as pill mill laws, state caps on the number of prescriptions per patient, state prescription drug monitoring systems, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for chronic pain treatment, addressing the concern that high dosages and long-term use of opioids for chronic pain can lead to opioid use disorder and its adverse health outcomes. Despite this decline, there are still prescription opioid hotspots in the US.

The researchers conclude, "Combining smoking cessation with substance abuse treatment could be crucial in addressing the opioid epidemic. Many states and localities are attempting to ban various types of cigarettes. Our research shows that any resulting smoking cessation from these bans may also contribute to easing the opioid crisis."

 

 

 

---

Journal

American Journal of Preventive Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.amepre.2024.07.010 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Heavy Versus Light Smoking: Its Association With Opioid Use, Chronic Pain, and Mental Health

Evidence of vaping’s harmful effects on blood vessels and the left ventricle of heart

Researchers develop smartphone-adaptable tools to determine the impact of nicotine-infused e-cigarettes

University of Southern California

A new study by researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, in collaboration with the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the Huntington Medical Research Institutes (HMRI) and UC Irvine, highlights the harmful effects of both electronic and standard cigarettes on cardiovascular health. In short, the researchers found that electronic cigarettes harm blood vessels while standard cigarettes impair the heart.

The study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) was led by Rashid Alavi, during his time as a mechanical engineering PhD student in the lab of Niema Pahlevan, the Gordon S. Marshall Early Career Chair in Engineering at USC and Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA), Pahlevan is a leading specialist in flow physics for application in medical diagnostics and treatment, and is recognized as an innovator in non-invasive measuring techniques to gain insights into heart health.

Titled “Adverse Cardiovascular Effects of Nicotine Delivered by Chronic Electronic Cigarettes or Standard Cigarettes Captured by Cardiovascular Intrinsic Frequencies,” the study applies an innovative fluid dynamics-based analysis technique to measure the impact of nicotine exposure via e-cigarette vapor and traditional cigarette vapor.  Although the study was performed on animal models,  it can also be applied to humans, as has been done in other applications including heart failure. For humans, one can use smartphone cameras to identify abnormalities in cardiovascular function.

Pahlevan explains how the process works. “For human applications, the smartphone camera captures images of the neck skin. Then an algorithm extracts vessel wall dilation from the skin vibrations recorded in the images. This dilation waveform mirrors the pressure waveform in large arteries, such as the carotid where wall viscoelasticity is minimal.”

Results: The results reveal that nicotine-containing electronic cigarettes negatively impact vascular function and left ventricle-arterial coupling. Traditional cigarettes were also found to significantly impair left ventricle contractile function. These findings demonstrate potential long-term consequences for cardiovascular health.

“Vaping with nicotine is causing accelerated aging of the vascular system,” said Pahlevan.

Impact: While electronic cigarettes with nicotine have gained popularity as a potential aid for quitting traditional smoking, their impact on cardiovascular health remained poorly understood – until now.

“People have this idea that e-cigarettes are much better than traditional cigarettes, so they quit traditional smoking and try e-cigarettes with nicotine. However, e-cigarettes with nicotine have so many adverse effects, so they need to be carefully considered,” said Pahlevan.

“The goal of this study was to raise awareness about vaping and its long-term effects on the cardiovascular system,” said Alavi, whose thesis was recognized for the top-4 thesis in the USC Viterbi Best PhD Dissertation Award and who is now the James Boswell Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech and HMRI. “When the vessels become impaired, this will eventually impact the heart. We want to help people to make informed decisions about whether to use a substance or not, ” Alavi added.

A smartphone tool, adds Alavi, can also be used in the final application by people who vape to allow them to assess if they are at-risk.

The intrinsic frequency method which is a new fluid dynamics-based analysis technique 'is clearly very sensitive to capture abnormalities in the cardiovascular system, even more than some standard hemodynamic measures. In addition, it is exciting that this technique can be applied to cell-phone applications to assess the heart’s function,” said Dr. Robert Kloner, Chief Scientific Officer at HMRI, and Professor of Medicine (clinical scholar) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

This approach holds significant potential for human applications. By developing a new, cost-effective method for detecting cardiovascular damage using only carotid pressure waveform (neck pulse) measurements, the study paves the way for faster, easier and more widespread testing.

The next step is to test the tool in human clinical trials.

Full list of authors:
Rashid Alavi , PhD; Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California,
Wangde Dai, MD; Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California; and Cardiovascular Research, Huntington Medical Research Institutes, Pasadena, CA
Sohrab P. Mazandarani, MA; Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California,
Rebecca J. Arechavala , PhD; Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, College of Health Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA
David A. Herman , PhD; Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, College of Health Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA
Michael T. Kleinman, PhD; Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, College of Health Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA
Robert A. Kloner , MD, PhD; Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California; and Cardiovascular Research, Huntington Medical Research Institutes, Pasadena, CA
Niema M. Pahlevan , PhD: Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California; and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Keck School of Medicine University of Southern California; and Cardiovascular Research, Huntington Medical Research Institutes, Pasadena, CA

Disclosures
N.M. Pahlevan holds equity in Ventric Health (Avicena LLC) and has a consulting agreement with Ventric Health (Avicena LLC).

---

Journal

Journal of the American Heart Association

Article Title

“Adverse Cardiovascular Effects of Nicotine Delivered by Chronic Electronic Cigarettes or Standard Cigarettes Captured by Cardiovascular Intrinsic Frequencies,”