Quantitative bias analysis in an asthma study of rescue-recovery workers and volunteers from the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks

Details

• Personal Author:
  Jurek AM ; Maldonado G
• Description:
  Purpose: When learning bias analysis, epidemiologists are taught to quantitatively adjust for multiple biases by correcting study results in the reverse order of the error sequence. To understand the error sequence for a particular study, one must carefully examine the health study's epidemiologic data-generating process. In this article, we describe the unique data-generating process of a man-made disaster epidemiologic study. Methods: We described the data-generating process and conducted a bias analysis for a study associating September 11, 2001 dust cloud exposure and self-reported newly physician-diagnosed asthma among rescue-recovery workers and volunteers. We adjusted an odds ratio (OR) estimate for the combined effect of missing data, outcome misclassification, and nonparticipation. Results: Under our assumptions about systematic error, the ORs adjusted for all three biases ranged from 1.33 to 3.84. Most of the adjusted estimates were greater than the observed OR of 1.77 and were outside the 95% confidence limits (1.55, 2.01). Conclusions: Man-made disasters present some situations that are not observed in other areas of epidemiology. Future epidemiologic studies of disasters could benefit from a proactive approach that focuses on the technical aspect of data collection and gathers information on bias parameters to provide more meaningful interpretations of results. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Asthma Asthma, Occupational Diagnosis Dust Environmental Monitoring Epidemiology Occupational Health Risk Assessment Safety September 11 Terrorist Attacks
• Keywords:
  9/11 Analytical Processes Author Keywords: Asthma Bias Analysis Clinical Diagnosis Data Processing Disaster Response Dust Exposure Exposure-assessment Exposure-levels Exposure-methods Humans Information Retrieval Systems Mathematical-models Outcome Misclassification Performance Tests Qualitative-analysis Quantitative-analysis Risk-analysis Selection Bias Sensitivity Analysis Sensitivity Testing Statistical-analysis World Trade Center WTC

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• ISSN:
  1047-2797
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement ; Contract ; Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Michigan ; Minnesota ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  26
• Issue:
  11
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20048842
• Citation:
  Ann Epidemiol 2016 Nov; 26(11):794-801
• Contact Point Address:
  Anne M. Jurek, PhD, Health Services, The Dow Chemical Company, Employee Development Center, Midland, MI 48674
• Email:
  jure0007@umn.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2017
• Performing Organization:
  University of Minnesota - Minneapolis
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20150702
• Source Full Name:
  Annals of Epidemiology
• End Date:
  20170630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:335747655901f6aad8d540e7421f5bf1321eeba908137c5f7c68784d5cb3064fd6983be06e28251cac82e777649105a4e19575981950d9c140e7c5a3e980f25f
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/203470/cdc_203470_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 572.68 KB ]