Rebecca Lipton, Ph.D.

Diabetes in Childhood, Obesity in Childhood, and their Implications on Public Health

Research Summary

A city-wide epidemiologic study of diabetes in children ages 0-17 in the City of Chicago provides the opportunity to explore the factors that cause this disease as well as its short- and long-term outcomes. The importance of the Chicago study is that it involves large numbers of African American and Latino young people, groups that have received very little attention in years past. We are studying how genetic and metabolic risk factors assort themselves within families, as well as how health attitudes and behaviors have an impact on risk for diabetes complications. Finally, the questions related to health services access are critically important in addressing the disparities in health outcomes between rich and poor.

Selected Papers

Lipton RB, Good G, Mikhailov T, Freels S, Donoghue E. (1999). Ethnic differences in mortality from type 1 diabetes mellitus among young people ages 1-24. Pediatrics 103:952-56.

Lipton RB, Drum ML, Zierold K, Klein-Gitelman M, Kohrman A. (2002). Re-hospitalization after diagnosis of diabetes varies by gender and socioeconomic status in urban African American and Latino young people. Pediatric Diabetes 3:16-22.

Lipton R, Keenan H, Onyemere KU, Freels S. (2002). Incidence and onset features of diabetes in African American and Latino children, Chicago, 1985-1994; Diab Metab Res Rev 18:135-42.

El Deirawi K, Lipton R. (2003). Predictors of Hemoglobin A1c in a national sample of non-diabetic children: The 3rd NHANES Study, 1988-1994. Am J Epidemiol 157:624-32

Hoff JA, Quinn L, Lipton RB, Daviglus M, Garside DB, Sevrukov A, Ajmere NK, Gandhi S, Kondos GT. (2003). The Prevalence of Coronary Artery Calcium Among Healthy Diabetic Individuals. J Am Coll Cardiol 41:1008-12.

Mendez EP, Lipton R, Ramsey-Goldman R, Roettcher P, Bowyer S, Dyer A, Pachman LM. (2003). US incidence of juvenile dermatomyositis, 1995-1998: Results from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Registry. Arthritis Rheum 49:300-05.

Lipton R, Drum ML, Burnet D, Mencarini M, Cooper A, Rich B. (2003). Self-reported Social Class, Self-management Behaviors, and the Impact of Diabetes in Urban, Minority Young People and Their Families. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 157:919-925.

Grover V, Lipton RB, Sclove SC. (2004). Seasonality of month of birth among African American children with diabetes in the City of Chicago. J Pediatr Endocrinol Metab 17:289-96.

McCarthy BJ, Lipton RB, Nichol L. (2004). HLA-DQA1 and -DQB1 Alleles in Latino and African American Children with Diabetes Mellitus. J Pediatr Endocrinol Metab 17:297-306.

Lipton RB, Drum ML, Burnet D, Rich B, Cooper A, Baumann EE, Hagopian W. Obesity at the Onset of Diabetes in an Ethnically Diverse Population of Children - What Does It Mean for Epidemiologists and Clinicians? Pediatrics (In press)