In a recent study, Kim and co-author Woodam Chung, PhD, a forest engineer at Oregon State University, were the first to objectively measure biomechanical stress experienced by professional timber fellers during actual timber felling operations. They also evaluated forest workers’ perceptions of wearable exoskeletons—emerging technology already being used in other physically demanding industries such as shipbuilding and automotive and aerospace manufacturing.

Children born to mothers with obesity, gestational diabetes mellitus or a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy have higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure than children born to mothers without these risk factors, according to a new USC study. Among children whose mothers had at least one risk factor, blood pressure also rose more quickly between ages 2 and 18 compared to their peers. Researchers used data collected between January 1994 and March 2023 through the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program. The data include demographic and health information on 12,480 mother-child pairs from across the country, about half of whom identified as non-white. The study found that children born to mothers with at least one cardiometabolic risk factor had a systolic blood pressure (SBP) that averaged 4.88 percentile points higher than children whose mothers had no risk factors. Diastolic blood pressure (DBP) averaged 1.90 percentile points higher. Children born to mothers with two risk factors faced even higher blood pressure. For example, when mothers had both obesity and a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy, their children had SBP that averaged 7.31 points higher and DBP that averaged 4.04 points higher than children whose mothers had no risk factors.. The findings, which suggest that blood pressure interventions could start as early as pregnancy, were just published in JAMA Network Open.