Stefanie Hinkle
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Public Health & Epidemiology
What a woman's health looks like before she becomes pregnant may shape how her pregnancy goes, yet most advice and interventions start only once pregnancy has begun. Complications such as pregnancy loss, preterm birth and metabolic problems are common, and there is little solid evidence on which preconception habits or nutrients matter most.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
preconception health
pregnancy outcomes
Medicaid
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2028
What they work on
- Create a preconception cohort by linking NHANES national health survey data with later Medicaid pregnancy records for low-income women of reproductive age.
- Estimate how preconception dietary patterns, physical activity and sleep affect adverse pregnancy outcomes, using a target trial framework that mimics a randomized trial with observational data.
- Test whether body composition and fat distribution, rather than BMI alone, and specific weight loss attempts and strategies before pregnancy relate to pregnancy complications.
- Classify iodine status before and throughout pregnancy in the 1,228-woman EAGeR cohort, using a hybrid design of urine biospecimen pooling and random sampling.
- Estimate how iodine deficiency in different periods affects time to pregnancy, fertility, very early pregnancy loss, preterm delivery and birth size, using trial emulation.
- Measure iodine in placentas to see how it relates to maternal urinary iodine and to pregnancy outcomes.
More about the research
This work uses large, existing population datasets and careful statistical methods to estimate how diet, exercise, sleep, body composition and iodine levels before and during pregnancy relate to fertility and pregnancy outcomes.
Why it matters
Preconception care often focuses on weight loss without clear evidence on how much or what strategy helps. This research could inform evidence-based preconception guidelines for diet, exercise, sleep and weight, especially for low-income women covered by Medicaid. If iodine deficiency proves harmful, iodine fortification, supplementation or dietary advice could offer a low-cost way to reduce infertility, pregnancy loss and preterm birth.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sonia Hernandez-Diaz
Harvard University, MA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Estimate whether specific anti-obesity drugs used before conception reduce obesity-related obstetric and newborn complications among more than 100,000 women with obesity in the MarketScan pregnancy–infant cohort.
Jonathan Purnell
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Public Health & Epidemiology
Compare birth size for gestational age, infant weight gain and BMI through age six in children of 2,120 women who had bariatric surgery before pregnancy versus 21,200 children of women without surgery, matched on pre-surgery or pre-pregnancy BMI.
Payal Chakraborty
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Quantify differences in unintended pregnancy rates by sexual orientation by combining data from two large national longitudinal cohorts.
The school
University of Pennsylvania: 90 labs on PI Pages, $2.2B a year on research, 750 research doctorates a year.
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