AUA SPH Alumna Publishes Master’s Thesis in Internationally Ranked Peer-Reviewed Journal “BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth”

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By the AUA School of Public Health 

YEREVAN, Armenia – Alumna of the American University of Armenia (AUA) School of Public Health (SPH) and lead author Arusyak Harutyunyan, MD, MPH (2009) and her coauthors Haroutune K. Armenian, AUA president emeritus and professor of epidemiology, and Varduhi Petrosyan, associate dean of the AUA School of Public Health, recently published the article “Interbirth interval and history of previous preeclampsia: a case-control” in BMC [BioMed Central] Pregnancy and Childbirth, an open access, internationally ranked peer-reviewed academic journal.

This manuscript was developed based on some of the results of Harutyunyan’s MPH thesis project at AUA, which was one of the few studies that investigated risk factors for preeclampsia development among women having more than one delivery.

Preeclampsia, one of the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, is a disorder with a reported incidence of 2%-8% among all pregnancies, accounting for more than 50,000 deaths worldwide each year. Despite existing researchexploring causes and management of preeclampsia, there has been noimprovement in predicting who will develop preeclampsia, and there are no protocols for prevention or treatment for this condition other thandelivery (even if it is a preterm delivery).

The findings of this study concluded that a long interbirth interval (greater than or equal to five years) appeared to be a strong risk factor for preeclampsia development only among women who did not have preeclampsia in their previous pregnancy. This finding may contribute to a new approach in understanding the etiology of preeclampsia and may be useful for developing further recommendations for women who have had preeclampsia in previous pregnancies and who are at a higher risk for preeclampsia development in subsequent pregnancies.

The article may be viewed here.

The AUA School of Public Health works actively to improve the health of the populace and health services in Armenia and the region through interdisciplinary education and development of public health professionals and others to be leaders in public health, health services research and evaluation, and health care delivery and management.