ArticleScientific reports2022
Persistent organic pollutant exposure contributes to Black/White differences in leukocyte telomere length in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Article in Scientific reports, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Multiple-index interaction models to accommodate exposure grouping in environmental mixtures.Biometrics · 2026Article
- Risk-based mapping of pesticide usage and social vulnerability in the contiguous United States.BMC public health · 2025Article
- What's the Weight? Estimating Controlled Outcome Differences in Complex Surveys for Health Disparities Research.Statistics in medicine · 2025Article
- Applications of mixture methods in epidemiological studies investigating the health impact of persistent organic pollutants exposures: a scoping review.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2025Article
- Housing characteristics, dietary patterns, and sociodemographic characteristics as predictors of persistent organic pollutant exposure among African American pregnant women in Atlanta.Environmental research · 2025Article
- Prevalence of neutropenia in the U.S. among reproductive-aged women: a population-based analysis of NHANES 2013-2020.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Path-specific causal decomposition analysis with multiple correlated mediator variables.Statistics in medicine · 2024Article
- Key characteristics of carcinogens meet hallmarks for prevention-cutting the Gordian knot.Frontiers in oncology · 2024Article
- Hormonal Injustice: Environmental Toxicants as Drivers of Endocrine Health Disparities.Endocrinology and metabolism clinics of North America · 2023Review
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Despite racial disparities in diseases of aging and premature mortality, non-Hispanic Black Americans tend to have longer leukocyte telomere length (LTL), a biomarker of cellular aging, than non-Hispanic White Americans. Previous findings suggest that exposure to certain persistent organic pollutants (POPs) is both racially-patterned and associated with longer LTL. We examine whether Black/White differences in LTL are explained by differences in exposure to 15 POPs by estimating the indirect effect (IE) of self-reported race on LTL that is mediated through nine polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), three furans, and three dioxins, as well as their mixtures. Our study population includes 1,251 adults from the 1999-2000 and 2001-2002 cycles of the cross-sectional National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We characterized single-pollutant mediation effects by constructing survey-weighted linear regression models. We also implemented various approaches to quantify a global mediation effect of all POPs, including unpenalized linear regression, ridge regression, and examination of three summary exposure scores. We found support for the hypothesis that exposure to PCBs partially mediates Black/White differences in LTL. In single-pollutant models, there were significant IEs of race on LTL through six individual PCBs (118, 138, 153, 170, 180, and 187). Ridge regression (0.013, CI 0.001, 0.023; 26.0% mediated) and models examining summative exposure scores with linear combinations derived from principal components analysis (0.019, CI 0.009, 0.029; 34.8% mediated) and Toxic Equivalency Quotient (TEQ) scores (0.016, CI 0.005, 0.026; 28.8% mediated) showed significant IEs when incorporating survey weights. Exposures to individual POPs and their mixtures, which may arise from residential and occupational segregation, may help explain why Black Americans have longer LTL than their White counterparts, providing an environmental explanation for counterintuitive race differences in cellular aging.
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