About the Authors

Stamatina Iliodromiti

Stamatina.iliodromiti@glasgow.ac.uk

Affiliation School of Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Daniel F. Mackay

Affiliation Institute of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Gordon C. S. Smith

Affiliations Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Cambridge, Rosie Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom, NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Jill P. Pell

Affiliation Institute of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Naveed Sattar

Affiliation Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Debbie A. Lawlor

Affiliation MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom

Scott M. Nelson

Affiliation School of Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: GCSS receives/has received research support from GE, Roche and GSK. GCSS has been paid to attend advisory boards by GSK and Roche. GCSS has acted as a paid consultant to GSK. GCSS has received support to attend a scientific meeting from Chiesi. GCSS is named inventor in a patent submitted by GSK (UK) for novel application of an existing GSK compound for the prevention of preterm birth (PCT/EP2014/062602). GCSS has acted as an expert witness. GCSS is a member of a Data Safety Monitoring Committee for a trial of an RSV vaccine in pregnancy, being run by GSK. Please note: none of these directly relate to the paper, but GCSS states them for full disclosure. GCSS is a member of the Editorial Board of PLOS Medicine. In addition to grant funding that is acknowledged in the paper and that was relevant to the conduct of the study reported in the paper, DAL's institution has received funds from public, charity, and industry funders from grants on which DAL is the Principal application (UK Medical Research Council, UK Economic and Social Research Council, UK National Institute of Health Research, Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation, Roche Diagnostics, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, and Medtronic PLC). These funders had no impact on any aspect of the work presented in this paper.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: SI JPP DAL GCSS NS SMN. Formal analysis: SI DFM DAL. Methodology: JPP DFM. Validation: SI SMN. Writing – original draft: SI SMN. Writing – review & editing: SI DFM JPP DAL GCSS NS SMN.