Design issues in small-area studies of environment and health

Environmental Health Perspectives

Volumn 116, Issue 8, 2008, Pages 1098-1104

  Elliott, Paul ^a   Savitz, David A ^b  

^a IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

^b MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE   (United States)

Author keywords

Air pollution; Chlorination by products; Exposure assessment; Extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields; Small area studies; Spatial epidemiology

Indexed keywords

DRINKING WATER;

AIR POLLUTION; ARTICLE; BIRTH DEFECT; CHILDHOOD LEUKEMIA; CHLORINATION; DISEASE SURVEILLANCE; ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURE; ENVIRONMENTAL FACTOR; ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH; GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION; GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM; HAZARD ASSESSMENT; HUMAN; LONG TERM EXPOSURE; MAGNETIC FIELD; POWER SUPPLY; PREVALENCE; PRIORITY JOURNAL; PUBLIC HEALTH; RISK ASSESSMENT; SOCIOECONOMICS; STATISTICAL MODEL; WATER SUPPLY; CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE; CLUSTER ANALYSIS; DRUG EFFECT; EPIDEMIOLOGY; LEUKEMIA; MAGNETISM; REPRODUCTION; RESPIRATORY TRACT DISEASE; WATER MANAGEMENT; WATER POLLUTANT;

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES; ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLIES; ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURE; EPIDEMIOLOGIC RESEARCH DESIGN; GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS; HUMANS; LEUKEMIA; MAGNETICS; REPRODUCTION; RESPIRATORY TRACT DISEASES; SMALL-AREA ANALYSIS; SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS; WATER POLLUTANTS, CHEMICAL; WATER PURIFICATION;

EID: 51249107182     PISSN: 00916765     EISSN: 15529924     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1289/ehp.10817     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Aylin P, Maheswaran R, Wakefield J, Cockings S, Jarup L, Arnold R, et al. 1999. A national facility for small area disease mapping and rapid initial assessment of apparent disease clusters around a point source: the UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit. J Public Health Med 21:289-298.
2. Beelen R, Hoek G, van den Brandt PA, Goldbohm A, Fischer P, Schouten LJ, et al. 2008. Long-term effects of traffic-related air pollution on mortality in a Dutch cohort (NLCSAIR Study). Environ Health Perspect 116:196-202.
3. Bellander T, Berglind N, Gustavsson P, Jonson T, Nyberg F, Pershagen G, et al. 2001. Using geographic information systems to assess individual historical exposure to air pollution from traffic and house heating in Stockholm. Environ Health Perspect 109:633-639.
4. Bernstein R, Di Gesù V. 1999. A combined analysis to extract objects in remote sensing images. Pattern Recognit Lett 20:1407-1414.
5. Brenner H, Savitz DA, Jöckel KH, Greenland S. 1992. Effects of nondifferential exposure misclassification in ecologic studies. Am J Epidemiol 135:85-95.
6. Costas K, Knorr RS, Condon SK. 2002. A case-control study of childhood leukemia in Woburn, Massachusetts: the relationship between leukemia incidence and exposure to public drinking water. Sci Total Environ 300:23-35.
7. Dockery DW, Pope CA III, Xu X, Spengler JD, Ware JH, Fay ME, et al. 1993. An association between air pollution and mortality in six U.S. cities. N Engl J Med 329:1753-1759.
8. Dolk H, Elliott P, Shaddick G, Walls P, Grundy C. 1997a. Cancer incidence near high power radio and TV transmitters in Great Britain: II. All transmitter sites. Am J Epidemiol 145:10-17.
9. Dolk H, Shaddick G, Walls P, Grundy C, Elliott P. 1997b. Cancer incidence near high power radio and TV transmitters in Great Britain: I. Sutton Coldfield transmitter. Am J Epidemiol 145:1-9.
10. Draper G, Vincent T, Kroll ME, Swanson J. 2005. Childhood cancer in relation to distance from high voltage power lines in England and Wales: a case-control study. BMJ 330:1290-1294.
11. Elliott P, Briggs D, Morris S, de Hoogh C, Hurt C, Jensen TK, et al. 2001. Risk of adverse birth outcomes in populations living near landfill sites. BMJ 323:363-368.
12. Elliott P, Shaddick G, Kleinschmidt I, Jolley D, Walls P, Beresford J, et al. 1996. Cancer incidence near municipal solid waste incinerators in Great Britain. Br J Cancer 73:702-710.
13. Elliott P, Shaddick G, Wakefield JC, de Hoogh C, Briggs DJ. 2007. Long-term associations of outdoor air pollution with mortality in Great Britain. Thorax 62:1088-1094.
14. Elliott P, Wakefield J. 2000. Bias and confounding. In: Spatial Epidemiology: Methods and Applications (Elliott P, Wakefield J, Best N, Briggs DJ, eds). Oxford:Oxford University Press, 68-84.
15. Elliott P, Wartenberg D. 2004. Spatial epidemiology: current approaches and future challenges. Environ Health Perspect 112:998-1006.
16. Feychting M, Ahlbom A. 1993. Magnetic fields and cancer in children residing near Swedish high-voltage power lines. Am J Epidemiol 138:467-481.
17. Gallagher MD, Nuckols JR, Stallones L, Savitz DA. 1998. Exposure to trihalomethanes and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Epidemiology 9:484-489.
18. Glynn A, Wakefield J, Handcock M, Richardson TS. 2008. Alleviating linear ecological bias and optimal design with subsample data. J Roy Statist Soc A 171:179-202.
19. Greenland S. 1992. Divergent biases in ecologic and individual-level studies. Stat Med 11:1209-1223.
20. Gunby JA, Darby SC, Miles JC, Green BM, Cox DR. 1993. Factors affecting indoor radon concentrations in the United Kingdom. Health Phys 64:2-12.
21. Haneuse S, Wakefield J. 2007. Hierarchical models for combining ecological and case-control data. Biometrics 63:128-136.
22. Hodgson S, Nieuwenhuijsen MJ, Elliott P, Jarup L. 2007. Kidney disease mortality and environmental exposure to mercury. Am J Epidemiol 165:72-77.
23. Hoek G, Brunekreef B, Goldbohm S, Fischer P, van den Brandt PA. 2002. Association between mortality and indicators of traffic-related air pollution in the Netherlands: a cohort study. Lancet 360:1203-1209.
24. Hunter PR, Bickerstaff K, Davies MA. 2004. Potential sources of bias in the use of individual's recall of the frequency of exposure to air pollution for use in exposure assessment in epidemiological studies: a cross-sectional survey. Environ Health 3(1):3.
25. Jackson C, Best N, Richardson S. 2006. Improving ecological inference using individual-level data. Stat Med 25:2136-2159.
26. Jarup L. 2004. Health and environment information systems for exposure and disease mapping, and risk assessment. Environ Health Perspect 112:995-997.
27. Keegan T, Whitaker H, Nieuwenhuijsen MJ, Toledano MB, Elliott P, Fawell J, et al. 2001. Use of routinely collected data on trihalomethane in drinking water for epidemiological purposes. Occup Environ Med 58:447-452.
28. King WD, Dodds L, Armson BA, Allen AC, Fell DB, Nimrod C. 2004. Exposure assessment in epidemiologic studies of adverse pregnancy outcomes and disinfection byproducts. J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol 14:466-472.
29. Krewski D, Burnett RT, Goldberg MS, Hoover K, Siemiatycki J, Jerrett M, et al. 2000. Reanalysis of the Harvard Six Cities Study and the American Cancer Society Study of Particulate Air Pollution and Mortality. Cambridge, MA:Health Effects Institute.
30. Künzli N, Tager IB. 1997. The semi-individual study in air pollution epidemiology: a valid design as compared to ecologic studies. Environ Health Perspect 105:1078-1083.
31. MacMahon S, Peto R, Cutler J, Collins R, Sorlie P, Neaton J, et al. 1990. Blood pressure, stroke, and coronary heart disease. Part 1, Prolonged differences in blood pressure: prospective observational studies corrected for the regression dilution bias. Lancet 335:765-774.
32. Maslia ML, Reyes JJ, Gillig RE, Sautner JB, Fagliano JA, Aral MM. 2005. Public health partnerships addressing childhood cancer investigations: case study of Toms River, Dover Township, New Jersey, USA. Int J Hyg Environ Health 208:45-54.
33. Morgenstern H. 1995. Ecologic studies in epidemiology: concepts, principles, and methods. Annu Rev Public Health 16:61-81.
34. Nuckols JR, Ashley DL, Lyu C, Gordon SM, Hinckley AF, Singer P. 2005. Influence of tap water quality and household water use activities on indoor air and internal dose levels of trihalomethanes. Environ Health Perspect 113:863-870.
35. Nuckols JR, Ward MH, Jarup L. 2004. Using geographic information systems for exposure assessment in environmental epidemiology studies. Environ Health Perspect 112:1007-1015.
36. Olsen JH, Nielsen A, Schulgen G. 1993. Residence near highvoltage facilities and the risk of cancer in children. BMJ 307:891-895.
37. Piantadosi S, Byar DP, Green SB. 1988. The ecological fallacy. Am J Epidemiol 127:893-904.
38. Pope CA III, Thun MJ, Namboodiri MM, Dockery DW, Evans JS, Speizer FE, et al. 1995. Particulate air pollution as a predictor of mortality in a prospective study of U.S. adults. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 151:669-674.
39. Prentice RL, Sheppard L. 1995. Aggregate data studies of disease risk factors. Biometrika 82:113-125.
40. Richardson S, Best N. 2003. Bayesian hierarchical models in ecological studies of health-environment effects. Environmetrics 14:129-147.
41. Rose G. 1981. Strategy of prevention: lessons from cardiovascular disease. BMJ 282:1847-1851.
42. Sheppard L, Prentice RL, Rossing MA. 1996. Design considerations for estimation of exposure effects on disease risk, using aggregate data studies. Stat Med 15:1849-1858.
43. Sohn J, Amy G, Choc J, Leed Y, Yoon Y. 2004. Disinfectant decay and disinfection by-products formation model development: chlorination and ozonation by-products. Water Res 38:2461-2478.
44. Stieb DM, Judek S, Burnett RT. 2002. Meta-analysis of time-series studies of air pollution and mortality: effects of gases and particles and the influence of cause of death, age, and season. J Air Waste Manag Assoc 52:470-484.
45. Toledano MB, Nieuwenhuijsen MJ, Best N, Whitaker H, Hambly P, de Hoogh C, et al. 2005. Relation of trihalomethane concentrations in public water supplies to stillbirth and birth weight in three water regions in England. Environ Health Perspect 113:225-232.
46. U.K. Childhood Cancer Study Investigators. 1999. Exposure to power-frequency magnetic fields and the risk of childhood cancer. Lancet 354:1925-1931.
47. van Roosbroeck S, Wichmann J, Janssen NA, Hoek G, van Wijnen JH, Lebret E, et al. 2006. Long-term personal exposure to traffic-related air pollution among school children, a validation study. Sci Total Environ 368:565-573.
48. Verkasalo P, Pukkala E, Hongisto M, Valjus J, Jarvinen P, Heikkila K, et al. 1993. Risk of cancer in Finnish children living close to power lines. BMJ 307:895-899.
49. Villanueva CM, Gagniere B, Monfort C, Nieuwenhuijsen MJ, Cordier S. 2007. Sources of variability in levels and exposure to trihalomethanes. Environ Res 103:211-220.
50. Wakefield J, Salway R. 2001. A statistical framework for ecological and aggregate studies. J R Stat Soc Ser A 164:119-137.
51. Waller K, Swan SH, Windham GC, Fenster L. 2001. Influence of exposure assessment methods on risk estimates in an epidemiologic study of total trihalomethane exposure and spontaneous abortion. J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol 11:522-531.
52. Wartenberg D, Greenberg M, Lathrop R. 1993. Identification and characterization of populations living near high voltage transmission lines: a pilot study. Environ Health Perspect 101:626-631.
53. Webster T. 2002. Commentary: does the spectre of ecologic bias haunt epidemiology? Int J Epidemiol 31:161-162.
54. Whitaker H, Best N, Nieuwenhuijsen MJ, Wakefield J, Fawell J, Elliott P. 2005. Modelling exposure to disinfection byproducts in drinking water for an epidemiological study of adverse birth outcomes. J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol 15:138-146.
55. Wilkinson P, Elliott P, Grundy C, Shaddick G, Thakrar B, Walls P, Falconer S. 1999. Case-control study of hospital admission with asthma in children aged 5-14 years: relation with road traffic in north west London. Thorax 54:1070-1074.