Evaluating the use of friend or family controls in epidemiologic case-control studies

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Cancer Epidemiol
• Personal Author:
  Zhong, Charlie ; Cockburn, Myles ; Cozen, Wendy ; Voutsinas, Jenna ; Lacey, James V. ; Luo, Jianning ; Sullivan-Halley, Jane ; Bernstein, Leslie ; Wang, Sophia S.
• Description:
  Background
  
  Traditional methodologies for identifying and recruiting controls in epidemiologic case-control studies, such as random digit dialing or neighborhood walk, suffer from declining response rates. Here, we revisit the feasibility and comparability of using alternative sources of controls, specifically friend and family controls.
  
  Methods
  
  We recruited from a recently completed case-control study of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) among women in Los Angeles County where controls from the parent study were ascertained by neighborhood walk. We calculated participation rates and compared questionnaire responses between the friend/family controls and the original matched controls from the parent study.
  
  Results
  
  Of the 182 NHL case patients contacted,111 (61%) agreed to participate in our feasibility study. 70 (63%) provided contact information for potential friend and/or family member controls. We were able to successfully contact and recruit a friend/family member for 92% of the case patients. This represented 46 friend controls and 54 family controls. Family controls significantly differed from original matched controls by sex and household income. Other characteristics were similar between friend controls and the original study’s neighborhood controls.
  
  Conclusion
  
  The apparent comparability of neighborhood controls to friend and family controls among respondents in this study suggests that these alternative methods of control identification can serve as a complementary source of eligible controls in epidemiologic case-control studies.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Aged Article Case-control Studies Epidemiologic Methods Family Feasibility Studies Female Friends Humans Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Surveys And Questionnaires

  More +
• Source:
  Cancer Epidemiol. 46:9-13.
• Pubmed ID:
  27871006
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC6252092
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  R01 CA166219/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; HHSN261201000140C/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; R01 CA108634/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; HHSN261201000035C/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; HHSN261201000035I/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; HHSN261201000034C/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; P01 CA017054/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States ; U58 DP003862/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHS/United States
• Volume:
  46
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:f1de2f1611bf70979be2df35a26c51fadf9b0289e97c8af836dfab5203474723
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/60861/cdc_60861_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 78.22 KB ]