ArticleEnvironmental health perspectives2017
Small-Magnitude Effect Sizes in Epigenetic End Points are Important in Children's Environmental Health Studies: The Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center's Epigenetics Working Group.
Article in Environmental health perspectives, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 174 papers, 14 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
174 citing papers in PubMed, 14 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 279 citations in OpenAlex.
- Breastfeeding association with DNA methylation in the pregnancy and childhood epigenetics (PACE) consortium.Clinical epigenetics · 2026Pooled it
- Newborn blood DNA methylation and childhood asthma: findings from the ECHO program.International journal of epidemiology · 2025Pooled it
- Associations of maternal night shift work during pregnancy with DNA methylation in offspring: a meta-analysis in the PACE consortium.Clinical epigenetics · 2025Pooled it
- Maternal age is related to offspring DNA methylation: A meta-analysis of results from the PACE consortium.Aging cell · 2024Pooled it
- Translational toxicoepigenetic Meta-Analyses identify homologous gene DNA methylation reprogramming following developmental phthalate and lead exposure in mouse and human offspring.Environment international · 2024Pooled it
- A meta-analysis of epigenome-wide association studies on pregnancy vitamin B12 concentrations and offspring DNA methylation.Epigenetics · 2023Pooled it
- Epigenome-wide meta-analysis of BMI in nine cohorts: Examining the utility of epigenetically predicted BMI.American journal of human genetics · 2023Pooled it
- Maternal Mediterranean diet in pregnancy and newborn DNA methylation: a meta-analysis in the PACE Consortium.Epigenetics · 2022Pooled it
- Longitudinal associations of DNA methylation and sleep in children: a meta-analysis.Clinical epigenetics · 2022Pooled it
- Prenatal medication exposure and epigenetic outcomes: a systematic literature review and recommendations for prenatal pharmacoepigenetic studies.Epigenetics · 2022Pooled it
- Epigenome-wide association study of diet quality in the Women's Health Initiative and TwinsUK cohort.International journal of epidemiology · 2021Pooled it
- Genome-wide DNA methylation differences in nucleus accumbens of smokers vs. nonsmokers.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2021Pooled it
- Traumatic stress and accelerated DNA methylation age: A meta-analysis.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2018Pooled it
- Case-control meta-analysis of blood DNA methylation and autism spectrum disorder.Molecular autism · 2018Pooled it
- Maternal dysglycaemia, changes in the infant's epigenome modified with a diet and physical activity intervention in pregnancy: Secondary analysis of a randomised control trial.PLoS medicine · 2020Trial
- Comparison of DNA methylation profiles from saliva in Coeliac disease and non-coeliac disease individuals.BMC medical genomics · 2020Trial
- Trial
- Epigenetic Insights in Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis: DNA Methylation Highlights an Involvement of Epstein-Barr Virus Infection and Host Immune Networks.Neurology(R) neuroimmunology & neuroinflammation · 2026Article
- Changes in Blood DNA CpG Methylation Levels in Response to Methadone Maintenance Treatment: Epigenome-Wide Longitudinal Study.Epigenomes · 2026Article
- Associations of metal mixtures in early pregnancy with lung function and asthma in mid-childhood in Project Viva.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
114 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
21 authors at 12 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundCharacterization of the epigenome is a primary interest for children's environmental health researchers studying the environmental influences on human populations, particularly those studying the role of pregnancy and early-life exposures on later-in-life health outcomes.
objectivesOur objective was to consider the state of the science in environmental epigenetics research and to focus on DNA methylation and the collective observations of many studies being conducted within the Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers, as they relate to the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis.
methodsWe address the current laboratory and statistical tools available for epigenetic analyses, discuss methods for validation and interpretation of findings, particularly when magnitudes of effect are small, question the functional relevance of findings, and discuss the future for environmental epigenetics research. DISCUSSION: A common finding in environmental epigenetic studies is the small-magnitude epigenetic effect sizes that result from such exposures. Although it is reasonable and necessary that we question the relevance of such small effects, we present examples in which small effects persist and have been replicated across populations and across time. We encourage a critical discourse on the interpretation of such small changes and further research on their functional relevance for children's health.
conclusionThe dynamic nature of the epigenome will require an emphasis on future longitudinal studies in which the epigenome is profiled over time, over changing environmental exposures, and over generations to better understand the multiple ways in which the epigenome may respond to environmental stimuli.
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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.