{"doi":"10.3390/ijerph191711069","title":"A Time-Varying Effect Model (TVEM) of the Complex Association of Tobacco Use and Smoke Exposure on Mean Telomere Length: Differences between Racial and Ethnic Groups Assessed in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey","abstract":"Telomere length is affected by lifestyle and environmental factors and varies between racial and ethnic groups; however, studies are limited, with mixed findings. This study examined the effects of tobacco use and smoke exposure on mean telomere length to identify critical age periods by race/ethnicity. We used time-varying effect modeling on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for continuous years 1999-2002 to observe the effects of active tobacco use and environmental tobacco smoke-measured through serum cotinine-and mean telomere length for adults 19 to 85 and older (N = 7826). Models were run for Mexican American, other Hispanic, non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and other/multi-race categories to allow for time-varying group differences, and controlled for biological sex, socioeconomic status, education, and ever-smoker status. Serum cotinine was found to have an increasing effect on telomere length from age 37 to approximately age 74 among Mexican Americans. Among other/multi-race individuals serum cotinine was found to have a decreasing effect at approximately age 42, and among Blacks, it had an overall decreasing effect from age 61 to 78. Findings reveal a further need to focus additional support and resources to intervene regarding disparate health effects from tobacco use and environmental smoke exposure for already vulnerable groups at particular ages.","journal":"International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health","year":2022,"id":311175,"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":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9576,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1007820,"name":"Claire E. Rowan","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":789614,"name":"Kevin Villalobos","orcid":"0000-0002-1872-4416","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":396516,"name":"Janani Rajbhandari‐Thapa","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":411637,"name":"Faustine Williams","orcid":"0000-0002-7960-2463","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":382852,"name":"Francisco Alejandro Montiel Ishino","orcid":"0000-0002-2837-726X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":45,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:33:28.480200Z","pmid":"36078786","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":[]}