{"doi":"10.1093/aje/kwad079","title":"Use of Chemical Hair Straighteners and Fecundability in a North American Preconception Cohort","abstract":"Chemical hair straighteners (\"relaxers\") are used by millions of North Americans, particularly women of color. Hair relaxers may contain endocrine-disrupting compounds, which can harm fertility. We evaluated the association between hair relaxer use and fecundability among 11,274 participants from Pregnancy Study Online (PRESTO), a North American preconception cohort study. During 2014-2022, participants completed a baseline questionnaire in which they reported their history of relaxer use and completed follow-up questionnaires every 8 weeks for 12 months or until pregnancy, whichever came first. We used multivariable-adjusted proportional probabilities regression models to estimate fecundability ratios (FRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Relative to never use, fecundability was lower among current (FR = 0.81, 95% CI: 0.64, 1.03) and former (FR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.81, 0.98) users of hair relaxers. FRs for first use of hair relaxers at ages <10, 10-19, and ≥20 years were 0.73 (95% CI: 0.55, 0.96), 0.93 (95% CI: 0.83, 1.04), and 0.85 (95% CI: 0.74, 0.98), respectively. Fecundability was lowest among those with longer durations of use (≥10 years vs. never: FR = 0.71, 95% CI: 0.54, 0.91) and more frequent use (≥5 times/year vs. never: FR = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.60, 1.11), but associations were nonmonotonic. In this preconception cohort study, use of chemical hair straighteners was associated with slightly reduced fecundability.","journal":"American Journal of Epidemiology","year":2023,"id":337105,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":18,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9582,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":372995,"name":"Tanran R. Wang","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1068411,"name":"Collette N. Ncube","orcid":"0000-0002-0661-9926","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1068412,"name":"Sharonda M. Lovett","orcid":"0000-0002-5840-6404","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":703246,"name":"Jasmine A. Abrams","orcid":"0000-0002-1464-9156","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":758703,"name":"Renée Boynton‐Jarrett","orcid":"0000-0002-5392-6443","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1068993,"name":"Martha R. Koenig","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":342209,"name":"Ruth J. Geller","orcid":"0000-0001-8828-0761","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":371912,"name":"Amelia K. Wesselink","orcid":"0000-0002-3929-4451","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":927842,"name":"Chad M. Coleman","orcid":"0000-0002-7694-8821","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":371913,"name":"Elizabeth E. Hatch","orcid":"0000-0001-7901-3928","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":317536,"name":"Tamarra James‐Todd","orcid":"0000-0003-3589-5169","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":329832,"name":"Lauren A. Wise","orcid":"0000-0003-2138-3752","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":74,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:10:26.690308Z","pmid":"37005071","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}