Highlights from the Annual Meeting

June 19-20, 2017 – Seattle, Washington
Meeting archives available here

 

Meeting Quick Stats:

  • Attendees at the Advanced Methods Workshop: 77
  • Attendees at the Regular Meeting: 268

Day 1:  Advanced Methods Workshop

The advanced methods workshop provided an informative and stimulating start to our annual meeting. Neil Perkins discussed sensitivity analyses for missing data, and Daniel Westreich & Elizabeth Rogawski provided guidance on how to pursue epidemiologic questions with policy relevance.   The workshop was highly attended, with nearly 20 additional participants compared to last year!   If you were unable to attend, slides from both presentations are available for SPER members; you must sign in to the SPER web site to access them (click here)

Many thanks to our presenters!

Day 1:  Panel Discussion – Celebrating 30 Years of SPERhighlights from annual meeting 1

The 30th Annual Meeting opened with a panel of 6 former winners of the Student Prize Paper Award. They presented on the remarkable advancements in our field since SPER began and the challenges that lie ahead.  Many thanks to Michael Bloom, Claudia HolzmanPauline Mendola, Laura Schieve, Jennifer Hutcheon, and Candice Johnson for a great opening session!

 Day 1:  Plenary Session

Plenary Session 1 celebrated the 50th anniversary of NICHD by highlighting some of the cutting edge research from its scientists. Thank you to Germaine Buck-Lewis, Keewan Kim, Enrique Schisterman, Alaina Bever, and Yeyi Zhou.

 Day 2:  Roundtable Discussions

This year’s meeting featured three engaging roundtables. Tania Lombo (National Institutes of Health) discussed the NIH Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program, Jonathan Snowden (Oregon Health and Sciences University) discussed physiologic perspectives on pregnancy and childbirth, and Michael Bloom (SUNY University at Albany) discussed the challenges associated with teaching reproductive, perinatal, and pediatric epidemiology to the next generation of scholars.   Thanks to our moderators and participants for the great start to Day 2!

 Day 2:  Plenary Sessions

The plenary sessions featured a broad range of topics with relevance to mothers, children, and families.  Themes included maternal morbidities (e.g., mental health; metabolic disorders), perinatal outcomes (e.g., preterm delivery), fetal and pediatric growth (e.g., weight gain; obesity), and neurodevelopment (e.g., ADHD, ASD).   Thanks to our presenters for an engaging series of talks!

Poster Sessions

There were 235 posters presented across two poster sessions, spanning diverse topics in perinatal and pediatric epidemiology.  Prior to each of these sessions, five “speed posters” were highlighted in the plenary to provide the audience with a broad sample of research represented at the meeting.

highlights from annual meeting 2Day 2:  Keynote Address by Frederick Rivara

Dr. Frederick Rivara (University of Washington) gave a riveting keynote entitled “Guns, children, and the peril to science.”   He reviewed the “state-of-the-evidence” regarding guns and pediatric health, including how politics affect research infrastructure and the translation of findings into evidence-based policy.

Thanks to Dr. Rivara for his engaging address!