Back in June 2020, Kayleigh had planned to attend two exciting back-to-back conferences in Boston, USA (Society for Epidemiologic Research/ Society for Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research). However, as the Covid-19 pandemic progressed, it became clear that an in-person conference would no longer be on the cards and instead both conferences were moved to be held online in December.
Going to a virtual conference was admittedly a different experience to in-person, and the -7 hour time difference of live talks being broadcast at first felt challenging. But luckily all sessions were recorded so we could catch up on any we missed! Kayleigh presented an online poster (shown below) which details our EPoCH study.
This year we were excited to see more talks that focused on paternal exposures around conception and their influence on offspring health. In particular paternal exposure to plastics seemed to feature heavily…this isn’t an exposure that we were including in EPoCH ourselves, but it was definitely thought provoking. We were also glad to hear many talks focusing on selection bias within pediatric epidemiology, and the effects this can have on the data we use. This is a topic that we are currently writing a paper on, and hope to share with you later this year!
The next SER/SPER conference is planned to take place (optimistically) in-person during the summer of 2021 in San Diego, and we hope that we can still take part even if from the comfort of our homes again whilst watching online…
