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Dr. Keren Agay-Shay, Haifa University, School of Public Health-Epidemiology
The research analyses the interface between epidemiology and environmental exposures in a study of the association between maternal exposures to air pollution and the incidence of congenital malformations (CM) in Israel. The research was based on retrospective datasets from governmental sources (Ministry of Health, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Environmental Protection) and two non-governmental sources (Israel Electric Corporation, Haifa Bay Municipal Association of Environmental Protection). Analyses were conducted on the national and regional levels. Nationally, ecological analysis for the total births population (live births and stillbirths) in Israel, isolated CM incidence. I evaluated socio-demographic risk factors and non-random patterns in time and space.
The analysis included advanced statistical methods and innovative modeling. Temporal changes (periodicity and trend) were modeled using Poisson trend harmonic methods. Spatial modeling, after geocoding of all maternal addresses, was carried out using several methods, including LISA and the SaTScan program, after geocoding for all the maternal addresses. The analyses were conducted for 45 CM sub-groups and for the secondary sex ratio (SSR). A retrospective cohort study was conducted for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area to analyze the association between those “Environmental CMs”, mainly congenital heart defects (CHD), and maternal exposure to ambient air pollutants and temperature during critical windows of development (weeks 3-8 of pregnancy). We evaluated values of ambient air pollutants by using the IDW (inverse distance weight) method. These associations were analysed in Multi-pollutant models and uni-pollutant models.
Supervisors: Prof. Shai Linn, Prof. Ammatzia Peled, Dr. Chava Peretz
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