Association between environmental risk factors and preterm birth defects.

Music City Center 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 25% of children with health problems under age five are related to environmental risk factors. The percentage for preterm birth is considered to be even higher, where it is the leading cause of death in children within the same age group. There were an estimated 900,000 deaths reported worldwide in 2019 in relation to preterm birth complications. This project studies the association between the number of preterm births at the county level in North Dakota and South Dakota with water and air pollution variables, building upon studies that have researched the association between them and preterm births individually. The preterm birth and birth defect occurrences of less than three (SD) and five (ND) are removed from data due to privacy concerns which lead to employing a truncated Poisson regression model. Furthermore, the Bayesian approach has been used for parameter estimation to allow for appropriate uncertainty characterization. Results indicate state, residential county, various behavioral variables, and specific water and air pollutants as significant predictors.

Truncated Poisson regression

Bayesian modeling 

Biometrics Section