6. Biblioteca del Centro Centroamericano de Población

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El Centro Centroamericano de Población (CCP) es un centro de investigaciones de la Universidad de Costa Rica, establecido inicialmente en 1993 como un Programa adscrito a la Escuela de Estadística. El CCP tiene un área de acción multidisciplinaria en la investigación, capacitación y diseminación de información en población con un ámbito Centroamericano.

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Dirección: De la Fuente de la Hispanidad 100 este, 100 norte y 100 este.
San Pedro de Montes de Oca.
Centro Centroamericano de Población,
Universidad de Costa Rica
San José 2060, Costa Rica.

Correo electrónico: ccp@ucr.ac.cr

Teléfonos:
(506) 2511-1452,
(506) 2511-1450,
(506) 2511-1716 (Biblioteca)

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 20
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    Epigenome-Wide Association Study and Epigenetic Age Acceleration Associated with Cigarette Smoking among Costa Rican Adults
    (Scientific Reports, Vol. 12 Núm, 2022) Cárdenas, Andrés; Ecker, Simone; Fadadu, Raj P.; Huen, Karen; Orozco, Allan; McEwen, Lisa M.; Engelbrecht, Hannah Ruth; Gladish, Nicole; Kobor, Michael S.; Rosero Bixby, Luis; Dow, William H.; Rehkopf, David H.
    Smoking-associated DNA methylation (DNAm) signatures are reproducible among studies of mostly European descent, with mixed evidence if smoking accelerates epigenetic aging and its relationship to longevity. We evaluated smoking-associated DNAm signatures in the Costa Rican Study on Longevity and Healthy Aging (CRELES), including participants from the high longevity region of Nicoya. We measured genome-wide DNAm in leukocytes, tested Epigenetic Age Acceleration (EAA) from five clocks and estimates of telomere length (DNAmTL), and examined effect modification by the high longevity region. 489 participants had a mean (SD) age of 79.4 (10.8) years, and 18% were from Nicoya. Overall, 7.6% reported currently smoking, 35% were former smokers, and 57.4% never smoked. 46 CpGs and five regions (e.g. AHRR, SCARNA6/SNORD39, SNORA20, and F2RL3) were differentially methylated for current smokers. Former smokers had increased Horvath’s EAA (1.69-years; 95% CI 0.72, 2.67), Hannum’s EAA (0.77-years; 95% CI 0.01, 1.52), GrimAge (2.34-years; 95% CI1.66, 3.02), extrinsic EAA (1.27-years; 95% CI 0.34, 2.21), intrinsic EAA (1.03-years; 95% CI 0.12, 1.94) and shorter DNAmTL (− 0.04-kb; 95% CI − 0.08, − 0.01) relative to non-smokers. There was no evidence of effect modification among residents of Nicoya. Our findings recapitulate previously reported and novel smoking-associated DNAm changes in a Latino cohort.
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    Derivation, internal validation, and recalibration of a cardiovascular risk score for Latin America and the Caribbean (Globorisk-LAC): A pooled analysis of cohort studies
    (The Lancet Regional Health - Americas, 9, 2022) Stern, Dalia; Hambleton, Ian R.; Lotufo, Paulo Andrade; Di Cesare, Mariachiara; Hennis, Anselm; Ferreccio, Catterina; Irazola, Vilma; Perel, Pablo; Gregg, Edward W.; Aguilar Salinas, Carlos Alberto; Álvarez Vaz, Ramón; Amadio, Marselle Bevilacqua; Baccino, Cecilia; Bambs S., Claudia; Bastos, João Luiz Dornelles; Beckles, Gloria; Bernabé Ortiz, Antonio; Bernardo, Carla; Bloch, Katia Vergetti; Blümel, Juan Enrique; Boggia, José G.; Borges, Pollyana Kássia de Oliveira; Bravo, Miguel; Brenes Camacho, Gilbert; Carbajal, Horacio A.; Casas Vásquez, Paola; Castillo Rascón, María Susana; Ceballos, Blanca H.; Colpani, Verônica; Cooper, Jackie A.; Cortés, Sandra; Cortés Valencia, Adrián; de Sá Cunha, Roberto; d'Orsi, Eleonora; Dow, William H.; Espeche, Walter G.; Fuchs, Flavio Danni; Pereira Costa Fuchs, Sandra Cristina; Godoy Agostinho Gimeno, Suely; Gómez Velasco, Donaji Verónica; González Chica, David Alejandro; González Villalpando, Clicerio; González Villalpando, María Elena; Grazioli, Gonzalo; Guerra, Ricardo Oliveira; Gutierrez, Laura E.; Herkenhoff Vieira, Fernando Luiz; Horimoto, Andrea Roseli Vancan Russo; Huidobro Muñoz, Laura Andrea; Koch, Elard S.; Lajous Loaeza, Martin; Furtado de Lima e Costa, Maria Fernanda; López Ridaura, Ruy; Campos Cavalcanti Maciel, Álvaro; Maestre, Gladys Elena; Manrique Espinoza, Betty Soledad; Marques, Larissa Pruner; Melgarejo Arias, Jesus David; Mena Camaré, Luis Javier; Mill, Jose Gerardo; Moreira, Leila Beltrami; Muñoz Velandia, Oscar Mauricio; Ono, Lariane Mortean; Oppermann, Karen; Ortiz Saavedra, Pedro José; de Paiva, Karina Mary; Viana Peixoto, Sérgio William; da Costa Pereira, Alexandre; Peres, Karen G.; de Anselmo Peres, Marco Aurelio; Ramírez Palacios, Paula; Rech, Cassiano Ricardo; Rivera Paredez, Berenice; Rodríguez Guerrero, Nohora Inés; Rojas Martínez, Maria Rosalba; Rosero Bixby, Luis; Rubinstein, Adolfo; Ruiz Morales, Álvaro de Jesus; Salazar, Martin R.; Salinas Rodríguez, Aarón; Nájera Salmerón, Jorge Alberto; Sánchez, Ramón Augusto; de Souza e Silva, Nelson Albuquerque; Nogueira da Silva, Thiago Luiz; Smeeth, Liam; Spritzer, Poli Mara; Tartaglione, Fiorella; Tartaglione, Jorge; Tello Rodríguez, Tania; Velázquez Cruz, Rafael; Cohorts Consortium of Latin America and the Caribbean (CC-LAC); Carrillo Larco, Rodrigo Martín; Miranda Montero, Juan J.; Ezzati, Majid; Danaei, Goodarz
    Background: Risk stratification is a cornerstone of cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention and a main strategy proposed to achieve global goals of reducing premature CVD deaths. There are no cardiovascular risk scores based on data from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and it is unknown how well risk scores based on European and North American cohorts represent true risk among LAC populations. Methods: We developed a CVD (including coronary heart disease and stroke) risk score for fatal/non-fatal events using pooled data from 9 prospective cohorts with 21,378 participants and 1,202 events. We developed laboratory based (systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking), and office-based (body mass index replaced total cholesterol and diabetes) models. We used Cox proportional hazards and held back a subset of participants to internally validate our models by estimating Harrell’s C-statistic and calibration slopes. Findings: The C-statistic for the laboratory-based model was 72% (70−74%), the calibration slope was 0.994 (0.934−1.055) among men and 0.852 (0.761−0.942) among women; for the office-based model the C-statistic was 71% (69−72%) and the calibration slope was 1.028 (0.980−1.076) among men and 0.811 (0.663−0.958) among women. In the pooled sample, using a 20% risk threshold, the laboratory-based model had sensitivity of 21.9% and specificity of 94.2%. Lowering the threshold to 10% increased sensitivity to 52.3% and reduced specificity to 78.7%. Interpretation: The cardiovascular risk score herein developed had adequate discrimination and calibration. The Globorisk-LAC would be more appropriate for LAC than the current global or regional risk scores. This work provides a tool to strengthen risk-based cardiovascular prevention in LAC.
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    Aggregation and insurance-mortality estimation
    (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2003) Dow, William H.; González, Kristine A.; Rosero Bixby, Luis
    One goal of government health insurance programs is to improve health, yet little is known empirically about how important such government interventions can be in explaining health transitions. We analyze the child mortality effects of a major health insurance expansion in Costa Rica. In contrast to previous work in this area that has used aggregated ecological designs, we exploit census data to estimate individual-level models. Theoretical and empirical econometric results indicate that aggregation can introduce substantial upward biases in the insurance effects. Overall we find a statistically significant but quite small effect of health insurance on child mortality in Costa Rica.
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    Insurance and other socioeconomic determinants of elderly longevity in a Costa Rican panel
    (Journal of Biosocial Science: 37(6), 2005) Rosero Bixby, Luis; Dow, William H.; Laclé Murray, Adriana
    Official figures show that life expectancy in Costa Rica is longer than in the United States (US), in spite of the fact that per capita health expenditure is only one-tenth that of the US. To check whether this is for real and to explore some of its determinants, 900 Costa Ricans aged 60+ were followed from 1984 to 2001. Follow-up household visits were made, deaths were tracked in the national death registry, and survival status in the voting registry was double-checked. In addition, the survivors were contacted in 2002. Two-thirds of the panel had died by December 2001. Kaplan—Meier curves, life tables and Cox regression were used to analyse the panel's survival. Mortality in the panel was slightly higher than the Costa Rican average and similar to that in the US, confirming the exceptional longevity of Costa Ricans. Survival was substantially lower among unmarried men and individuals with limited autonomy at the beginning of the study. The effect of socioeconomic status is weak. Insurance effects seem to be confounded by selection biases.
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    Surprising SES gradients in mortality, health, and biomarkers in a Latin American population of adults
    (Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences 64B(1), 2009) Dow, William H.; Rosero Bixby, Luis
    Background. To determine socioeconomic status (SES) gradients in the different dimensions of health among elderly Costa Ricans. Hypothesis: SES disparities in adult health are minimal in Costa Rican society. Methods. Data from the Costa Rican Study on Longevity and Healthy Aging study: 8,000 elderly Costa Ricans to determine mortality in the period 2000 – 2007 and a subsample of 3,000 to determine prevalence of several health conditions and biomarkers from anthropometry and blood and urine specimens. Results. The ultimate health indicator, mortality, as well as the metabolic syndrome, reveals that better educated and wealthier individuals are worse off. In contrast, quality of life – related measures such as functional and cognitive disabilities, physical frailty, and depression all clearly worsen with lower SES. Overall self-reprted health (SRH) also shows a strong positive SES gradient. Traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes and cholesterol are not signifi cantly related to SES, but hypertension and obesity are worse among high-SES individuals. Refl ecting mixed SES gradients in behaviors, smoking and lack of exercise are more common among low SES, but high calorie diets are more common among high SES. Conclusions. Negative modern behaviors among high-SES groups may be reversing cardiovascular risks across SES groups, hence reversing mortality risks. But negative SES gradients in healthy years of life persist.
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    Stressors over the life course and neuroendocrine system dysregulation in Costa Rica
    (Journal of Aging and Health XX(X), 2010) Gersten, Omer; Rosero Bixby, Luis; Dow, William H.
    Objectives: A key aspect of the increasingly popular allostatic load (AL) framework is that stressors experienced over the entire life course result in physiological dysregulation. Although core to AL theory, this idea has been little tested, and where it has been tested, the results have been mixed. Method: The study analyzes the Costa Rican Study on Longevity and Healthy Aging (CRELES), a new, cross-sectional, and nationally representative survey of older Costa Rican men and women (aged between 60 and 109 years). The survey period is between 2004 and 2006, and the survey has a sample size of 2,827 individuals. This article focuses on the relationship between a variety of stressors experienced over the life course and cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS), epinephrine, and norepinephrine analyzed separately and in an index. Results: There are some links between certain stressors and worse cortisol levels, but overall, almost all of the stressors examined are not associated with riskier neuroendocrine biomarker profiles. Discussion: More work is needed, in order to establishthe connection between stressors experienced over the life course and resting levels of the neuroendocrine markers.
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    Predicting mortality with biomarkers : a population-based prospective cohort study for elderly Costa Ricans
    (Population Health Metrics 10(1), 2012) Rosero Bixby, Luis; Dow, William H.
    Background: Little is known about adult health and mortality relationships outside high-income nations, partly because few datasets have contained biomarker data in representative populations. Our objective is to determine the prognostic value of biomarkers with respect to total and cardiovascular mortality in an elderly population of a middle-income country, as well as the extent to which they mediate the effects of age and sex on mortality. Methods: This is a prospective population-based study in a nationally representative sample of elderly Costa Ricans. Baseline interviews occurred mostly in 2005 and mortality follow-up went through December 2010. Sample size after excluding observations with missing values: 2,313 individuals and 564 deaths. Main outcome: prospective death rate ratios for 22 baseline biomarkers, which were estimated with hazard regression models. Results: Biomarkers significantly predict future death above and beyond demographic and self-reprted health conditions. The studied biomarkers account for almost half of the effect of age on mortality. However, the sex gap in mortality became several times wider after controlling for biomarkers. The most powerful predictors were simple physical tests: handgrip strength, pulmonary peak flow, and walking speed. Three blood tests also predicted prospective mortality: C-reactive protein (CRP), glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS). Strikingly, high blood pressure (BP) and high total cholesterol showed little or no predictive power. Anthropometric measures also failed to show significant mortality effects. Conclusions: This study adds to the growing evidence that blood markers for CRP, HbA1c, and DHEAS, along with organ-specific functional reserve indicators (handgrip, walking speed, and pulmonary peak flow), are valuable tools for identifying vulnerable elderly. The results also highlight the need to better understand an anomaly noted previously in other settings: despite the continued medical focus on drugs for BP and cholesterol, high levels of BP and cholesterol have little predictive value of mortality in this elderly population.
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    Long-term association of economic inequality and mortality in adult Costa Ricans
    (Social Science & Medicine; Volumen 74, Número 2, 2012) Modrek, Sepideh; Dow, William H.; Rosero Bixby, Luis
    Despite the large number of studies, mostly in developed economies, there is limited consensus on the health effects of inequality. Recently a related literature has examined the relationship between relative deprivation and health as a mechanism to explain the economic inequality and health relationship. This study evaluates the relationship between mortality and economic inequality, as measured by area-level Gini coefficients, as well as the relationship between mortality and relative deprivation, in the context of a middle-income country, Costa Rica. We followed a nationally representative prospective cohort of approximately 16,000 individuals aged 30 and over who were randomly selected from the 1984 census. These individuals were then linked to the Costa Rican National Death Registry until Dec. 31, 2007. Hazard models were used to estimate the relative risk of mortality for all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality for two indicators: canton-level income inequality and relative deprivation based on asset ownership. Results indicate that there was an unexpectedly negative association between canton income inequality and mortality, but the relationship is not robust to the inclusion of canton fixed-effects. In contrast, we find a positive association between relative deprivation and mortality, which is robust to the inclusion of canton fixed-effects. Taken together, these results suggest that deprivation relative to those higher in a hierarchy is more detrimental to health than the overall dispersion of the hierarchy itself, within the Costa Rican context.
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    Longer leukocyte telomere length in Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula: A population-based study
    (Experimental Gerontology; Volumen 48, Número 11, 2013) Rehkopf, David H.; Dow, William H.; Rosero Bixby, Luis; Lin, Jue; Epel, Elissa S.; Blackburn, Elizabeth H.
    Studies in humans suggest that leukocyte telomere length may act as a marker of biological aging. We investigated whether individuals in the Nicoya region of Costa Rica, known for exceptional longevity, had longer telomere length than those in other parts of the country. After controlling for age, age squared, rurality, rainy season and gender, mean leukocyte telomere length in Nicoya was substantially longer (81 base pairs, p<0.05) than in other areas of Costa Rica, providing evidence of a biological pathway to which this notable longevity may be related. This relationship remains unchanged (79 base pairs, p<0.05) after statistically controlling for nineteen potential biological, dietary and social and demographic mediators. Thus the difference in mean leukocyte telomere length that characterizes this unique region does not appear to be explainable by traditional behavioral and biological risk factors. More detailed examination of mean leukocyte telomere length by age shows that the regional telomere length difference declines at older ages.
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    Seasonal variation of peripheral blood leukocyte telomere length in Costa Rica : a population-based observational study
    (American Journal of Human Biology; Volumen 26, Número 3, 2014) Rehkopf, David H.; Dow, William H.; Rosero Bixby, Luis; Lin, Jue; Epel, Elissa S.; Blackburn, Elizabeth H.
    Objectives: Peripheral blood leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is increasingly being used as a biomarker of aging, but its natural variation in human populations is not well understood. Several other biomarkers show seasonal variation, as do several determinants of LTL. We examined whether there was monthly variation in LTL in Costa Rica, a country with strong seasonal differences in precipitation and infection. Methods: We examined a longitudinal population-based cohort of 581 Costa Rican adults age 60 and above, from which blood samples were drawn between October 2006 and July 2008. LTL was assayed from these samples using the quantitative PCR method. Multivariate regression models were used to examine correlations between month of blood draw and LTL. Results: Telomere length from peripheral blood leukocytes varied by as much as 200 base pairs depending on month of blood draw, and this difference is not likely to be due to random variation. A moderate proportion of this association is statistically accounted for by month and region specific average rainfall. We found shorter telomere length associated with greater rainfall. Conclusions: There are two possible explanations of our findings. First, there could be relatively rapid month-to-month changes in LTL. This conclusion would have implications for understanding the natural population dynamics of telomere length. Second, there could be seasonal differences in constituent cell populations. This conclusion would suggest that future studies of LTL use methods to account for the potential impact of constituent cell type.

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