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Revealing Environmental Causes of Preterm Births in a Quasi-Experimental Framework

Project description

Identifying new environmental causes of preterm birth through natural experiments

According to the World Health Organization, preterm birth complications are the leading cause of death among children under 5 years of age. While the causes of premature birth are unclear, environmental factors are suspected to be the main driver. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the TinyTrend project aims to identify new environmental causes of premature birth by integrating text mining with epidemiological analyses. The project will combine population-wide health data from Lombardy, Italy, comprising 1 million pregnancies between 2012-2023, with insights derived from AI about changes in environmental policies in the same period. The team will infer causality about the contribution of environmental factors to preterm birth using policy changes as natural experiments.

Objective

Preterm birth (<37 weeks' gestation) is the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5 worldwide, accounting for 900k neonatal deaths a year. Preterm birth rates vary widely within and between countries, with environmental causes of yet unclear aetiology suspected to be the main drivers. The main goal of TinyTrend is to reveal the role of environmental risk factors and inform risk-mitigation policies for preterm births by evaluating environmental policy changes in a quasi-experimental setting. This interdisciplinary project will devise a robust and novel methodology through embedding data science and artificial intelligence within an epidemiology framework to: 1) systematically identify policy changes targeting environmental factors, 2) evaluate their role on preterm birth rates in time and space (quasi-experimental framework), 3) draw causal inferences integrating original and previous evidence on the impact of these environmental factors on preterm births. The Experienced Researcher (ER) will advance his skills in environmental science, public health, epidemiology and informatics through high-calibre external and in-house training from the host institution. TinyTrend will leverage high-quality population-wide administrative health data from Lombardy (Italy), including 1M pregnancies for the 2010-2023 period, and generate a new FAIR dataset of policy changes. For the first time, the ER will combine both data sources in an interrupted time series analysis with control series to generate robust evidence on new environmental causes and their critical time windows for preterm births. TinyTrend will present a best practice template for other Italian regions to follow that is transferable to generate new insights into other diseases with a significant environmental component and elusive aetiology.

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01

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Coordinator

FONDAZIONE HUMAN TECHNOPOLE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 172 750,08
Address
VIALE LEVI MONTALCINI RITA 1
20157 Milano
Italy

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Region
Nord-Ovest Lombardia Milano
Activity type
Research Organisations
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Total cost

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