About

Dr. Audrie Lin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She earned her PhD in Microbiology & Immunology in 2012 from Stanford University and completed her Master of Public Health (MPH) in Epidemiology in 2021 at UC Berkeley. Dr. Lin has 15 years of experience leading large-scale impact evaluations in low-resource rural settings and urban informal settlements across countries including Bangladesh, Kenya, Fiji, Indonesia, and Madagascar. Her research employs a Developmental Origins of Health and Disease framework to investigate the biological embedding of childhood adversity through the exposome. Her transdisciplinary work focuses on understanding how environmental exposures influence health outcomes from early life stages, particularly in vulnerable populations.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Environmental health
• Biology
• Microbiology
• Internal medicine
• Ecology
• Pediatrics
• Geography
• Immunology
• Nursing

Selected publications

• Correction: Distinct Distal Gut Microbiome Diversity and Composition in Healthy Children from Bangladesh and the United States

  PLoS ONE · 2026-03-02

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  [This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0053838.].

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• <p>Original data underlying the corrected heatmap in the updated Fig 6, showing the combined <i>Lactobacillus</i> relative abundance.</p>

  Figshare · 2026-03-02

  dataset1st authorCorresponding

  Original data underlying the corrected heatmap in the updated Fig 6, showing the combined <i>Lactobacillus</i> relative abundance.

  DOI

• <p>Original data underlying the heatmap presented in the uncorrected Fig 6.</p>

  Figshare · 2026-03-02

  dataset1st authorCorresponding

  Original data underlying the heatmap presented in the uncorrected Fig 6.

  DOI

• Abstract 3528 Maternal cortisol is not associated with maternal gut microbiome during pregnancy in rural Bangladesh

  Journal of Biological Chemistry · 2026-05-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Water, sanitation, handwashing, and nutritional interventions can reduce child antibiotic use: evidence from Bangladesh and Kenya

  Nature Communications · 2025-01-09 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Antibiotics can trigger antimicrobial resistance and microbiome alterations. Reducing pathogen exposure and undernutrition can reduce infections and antibiotic use. We assess effects of water, sanitation, handwashing (WSH) and nutrition interventions on caregiver-reported antibiotic use in Bangladesh and Kenya, longitudinally measured at three timepoints among birth cohorts (ages 3-28 months) in a cluster-randomized trial. Over 50% of children used antibiotics at least once in the 90 days preceding data collection. In Bangladesh, the prevalence of antibiotic use was 10-14% lower in groups receiving WSH (prevalence ratio [PR] = 0.90 (0.82-0.99)), nutrition (PR = 0.86 (0.78-0.94)), and nutrition+WSH (PR = 0.86 (0.79-0.93)) interventions. The prevalence of using antibiotics multiple times was 26-35% lower in intervention arms. Reductions were largest when the birth cohort was younger. In Kenya, interventions did not affect antibiotic use. In this work, we show that improving WSH and nutrition can reduce antibiotic use. Studies should assess whether such reductions translate to reduced antimicrobial resistance.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Seasonally varying effects of improved water, sanitation and handwashing interventions on Giardia infection in Bangladesh

  medRxiv · 2025-12-27

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Background Giardia is the most common enteric parasite among children in low-resource settings, causing diarrhoea and leading to prolonged infection or asymptomatic carriage. We assessed whether the effect of water, sanitation and handwashing (WSH) interventions on Giardia infection among rural Bangladeshi children varies with seasonal conditions. Methods We conducted a secondary analysis of the WASH Benefits Bangladesh cluster-randomized trial, with 450 clusters assigned to four arms in a 2×2 factorial design (WSH: WSH, WSH+Nutrition; no WSH: Control, Nutrition). Giardia infection was measured by multiplex real-time PCR in stool samples after two years of intervention. Effects were estimated by marginal treatment and assessed for heterogeneity by season when Giardia was measured. We also assessed heterogeneity by cumulative exposure to dry and monsoon seasons from birth to measurement age to estimate the exposure history of Giardia . Results Giardia prevalence, measured among 2773 children (median age: 30 months, range: 22-38 months), was higher in the dry seasons (32%) than in the monsoon (21%). The effect of WSH was consistent on the relative (20% reduction) and absolute scales, with slightly greater absolute reduction during the dry season (dry: −6.1%, −10.1% to −2.1%). With increasing dry-season exposure, the period of highest risk, prevalence remained consistently lower in the WSH group, with the largest differences between study groups among children with more than 17 months of dry-season exposure by age over two years. Conclusion We demonstrate how WSH provides resilience to seasonal variation in infection risk and mitigates climate-driven, seasonally varying Giardia transmission. Key Messages What your research question was We investigated whether the effect of water, sanitation and handwashing (WSH) interventions on Giardia infection among rural Bangladeshi children varies with seasonal conditions. What you found We found that Giardia risk varied seasonally, with improved WSH providing consistent relative and absolute reductions — slightly greater on the absolute scale during the dry season — and larger reductions among children with greater cumulative exposure to dry months, reflecting higher baseline risk and demonstrating how WSH enhances resilience to seasonally varying infection risk. Why it is important Since the dry and monsoon seasonal cycle is extreme in Bangladesh, this study demonstrates how WSH can mitigate seasonally varying Giardia infection risk.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A framework for guiding integrated disease control measures through multipathogen surveillance

  medRxiv · 2025-11-04

  preprintOpen access

  Global health programs have traditionally focused on single diseases. There is potential for synergy through integrated intervention delivery, particularly in areas with overlapping geographic disease burden, but there is limited methodology developed for assessing potential efficiency gains through integration. Here, we applied a measure of diversity, Rao's quadratic index, to quantify multipathogen burden across two large-scale surveys: Bangladesh (90 clusters, 2,396 children) and Cambodia (100 clusters, 2,150 women). In both settings, we observed geographic clustering of multiple pathogens, indicating potential for more efficient, integrated disease control strategies. We assessed the efficiency of a multipathogen-targeted strategy compared to traditional single-pathogen approaches by calculating the percent reduction in the number of spatial clusters needed to reach 75% of the disease burden (infections or unvaccinated individuals) in a hypothetical intervention. In Bangladesh, integrating deworming with measles vaccination guided by Rao's quadratic index improved efficiency by 15% for Ascaris lumbricoides, 31% for hookworm, and 38% for Trichuris trichiura, compared to a measles-focused approach. In Cambodia, a Rao-guided strategy performed similarly to the best single-pathogen strategy for Strongyloides stercoralis, and reduced the number of spatial clusters that would need to be targeted by 57% (lymphatic filariasis), 83% (Plasmodium falciparum), and 59% (Plasmodium vivax). We also found that higher multipathogen burden was significantly associated with lower household wealth, suggesting that Rao-guided strategies may be more effective in reaching under-resourced populations. These findings support the use of multipathogen burden metrics to guide integrated program delivery, offering potential for greater efficiency in disease control.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Associations Between Micronutrient Status, Hormones, and Immune Status During Pregnancy and Child Growth in Rural Bangladesh: A Prospective Cohort Study

  Current Developments in Nutrition · 2025-11-08

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Background: Poor growth in early childhood is associated with increased mortality, impaired cognitive development, and reduced adult economic productivity, which may result in higher risks of social immobility and intergenerational poverty. Objective: We aimed to evaluate whether maternal hormones, immune status, and micronutrient status during all trimesters of pregnancy were associated with child growth outcomes in the first two years after birth. Methods: values were adjusted using the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure. We used generalized additive models, adjusted for covariates, and reported the mean difference in outcomes between the 25th and 75th percentiles of the exposure distribution. Results: = 636), at 3 mo of age, maternal AGP and RBP were positively associated with infant WLZ. By 14 mo, higher maternal estriol was linked with higher LAZ, and RBP remained positively associated with WLZ. At 28 mo, maternal estriol showed a negative association with IGF-1, and a higher cytokine sum score was negatively associated with WLZ. Conclusions: These findings suggest the possible pathways through which maternal biomarkers influence early childhood growth, highlighting the intrauterine environment's critical role in shaping developmental outcomes.The parent trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01590095).

  PublisherDOI

• WASH Benefits Bangladesh Analysis of Nutrition, Stress, Estriol, and Inflammation During Pregnancy and Stress Outcomes

  OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2025-02-27

  other
  Publisher

• Associations Between Intimate Partner Violence, Depression, Perceived Stress, and Child Growth

  Current Developments in Nutrition · 2025-05-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Fortification and Biofortification Meal/Menu, and Food Group Diversity Meal/Menu).The purpose of this study was to validate benchmarks for these metrics and sub-metrics.Methods: The validation of the GDQS-Meal and Menu benchmarks included identifying school meal/menu data from five countries; tabulating the GDQS-Meal and Menu metrics for each of the meals/menus for three age groups (24-59 months, 5-9 years, 10-14 years); matching food items in the school meal/ menu data with energy and 11 critical nutrients of public health concern; comparing the nutrient levels of the meals/menus with the recommended meal/menu amount for each nutrient; calculating nutrient ratios to compare the nutrient level provided in each meal/menu to the recommended amount for each nutrient (1/3 of age-and sex-specific Recommended Dietary Allowances); and comparing the set of nutrient ratios to the GDQS-Meal and Menu scores and benchmarks.Results: The results from the validation analyses show that across the meals and menus analyzed the proposed benchmarks meaningfully discriminate between meals and menus that are of lower and higher nutritional quality.Results were consistent across the 5-9-and 10-14-year age groups for all metrics and submetrics.Limited data for the 24-59-month age group precluded robust analyses but indicated validity for the Fortification and Biofortification Meal/Menu sub-metric.Conclusions: The results from the validation study suggest that the GDQS-Meal and Menu benchmarks provide an objective measure by which to evaluate the nutritional quality of school meals and menus comparably over time, across schools, contexts, and countries.The benchmarks provide interpretable cut-points on which to make decisions for improving the quality of the meals and menus in institutional settings.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Benjamin F. Arnold

  Global Brain Health Institute

  78 shared

• John M. Colford

  Berkeley Public Health Division

  52 shared

• Stephen P. Luby

  Stanford University

  45 shared

• Christine P. Stewart

  42 shared

• Mahbubur Rahman

  Uppsala University

  42 shared

• Jade Benjamin‐Chung

  Stanford University

  39 shared

• Ayşe Ercümen

  North Carolina State University

  38 shared

• Clair Null

  Mathematica Policy Research

  37 shared

Labs

• Lin LabPI