ArticleBiodemography and social biology2016
Neighborhood and Family Environment of Expectant Mothers May Influence Prenatal Programming of Adult Cancer Risk: Discussion and an Illustrative DNA Methylation Example.
Article in Biodemography and social biology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Neighborhood-level deprivation measures in the United States: a scoping review and reference guide for investigators.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Environmental exposures and epigenetic alterations in common chronic diseases: insights and challenges.Environmental epigenetics · 2026Review
- Maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and offspring imprinted gene DMR methylation at birth.Epigenetics · 2024Article
- Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation and Monocyte DNA Methylation Age Acceleration.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- Epigenetics of Early Cardiometabolic Disease: Mechanisms and Precision Medicine.Circulation research · 2023Review
- Prenatal Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Epigenetic Alterations at Birth Among Children Born to White British and Pakistani Mothers in the Born in Bradford Study.Epigenetics · 2022Article
- Impact of paternal education on epigenetic ageing in adolescence and mid-adulthood: a multi-cohort study in the USA and Mexico.International journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- Understanding Health Inequalities Through the Lens of Social Epigenetics.Annual review of public health · 2022Review
- Associations between indicators of socioeconomic position and DNA methylation: a scoping review.Clinical epigenetics · 2021Article
- Neighborhood Socioeconomic Deprivation and Mortality in Children with Central Nervous System Tumors.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2021Article
- Prenatal Neighborhood Ethnocultural Context and the Mental Health of Mothers and Children in Low-Income Mexican American Families.Child development · 2021Article
- Article
- Multilevel prenatal socioeconomic determinants of Mexican American children's weight: Mediation by breastfeeding.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2020Article
- Association of Neighborhood Disadvantage in Childhood With DNA Methylation in Young Adulthood.JAMA network open · 2020Observational
- Use of an Exposome Approach to Understand the Effects of Exposures From the Natural, Built, and Social Environments on Cardio-Vascular Disease Onset, Progression, and Outcomes.Frontiers in public health · 2020Review
- Associations Between Maternal Community Deprivation and Infant DNA Methylation of the SLC6A4 Gene.Frontiers in public health · 2020Article
- Neighborhood Environment and DNA Methylation: Implications for Cardiovascular Disease Risk.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2019Review
- Neighborhood Disadvantage and Telomere Length: Results from the Fragile Families Study.The Russell Sage Foundation journal of the social sciences : RSF · 2018Article
- DNA methylation and socioeconomic status in a Mexican-American birth cohort.Clinical epigenetics · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Childhood stressors including physical abuse predict adult cancer risk. Prior research portrays this finding as an indirect mechanism that operates through coping behaviors, including adult smoking, or through increased toxic exposures during childhood. Little is known about potential direct causal mechanisms between early-life stressors and adult cancer. Because prenatal conditions can affect gene expression by altering DNA methylation, with implications for adult health, we hypothesize that maternal stress may program methylation of cancer-linked genes during gametogenesis. To illustrate this hypothesis, we related maternal social resources to methylation at the imprinted MEG3 differentially methylated regulatory region, which has been linked to multiple cancer types. Mothers (n = 489) from a diverse birth cohort (Durham, North Carolina) provided newborns' cord blood and completed a questionnaire. Newborns of currently married mothers showed lower (-0.321 SD, p < .05) methylation compared to newborns of never-married mothers, who did not differ from newborns whose mothers were cohabiting and others (adjusted for demographics). MEG3 DNA methylation levels were also lower when maternal grandmothers co-resided before pregnancy (-0.314 SD, p < .05). A 1-SD increase in prenatal neighborhood disadvantage also predicted higher methylation (-0.137 SD, p < .05). In conclusion, we found that maternal social resources may result in differential methylation of MEG3, which demonstrates a potential partial mechanism priming socially disadvantaged newborns for later risk of some cancers.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.