MEASUREMENT ERRORS IN OCCUPATIONAL EPIDEMIOLOGY

职业流行病学家经常在以下方面遇到重大错误 对感兴趣的暴露的测量，特别是在下列研究中 必须对暴露情况进行回顾评估。即使在暴露于 评估与结果数据的收集、测量同时进行 职业研究中的错误通常被认为是相当大的。在……里面 一般而言，这些误差会导致效应估计偏向于零和 低估了可信区间的宽度。虽然 统计学家提出了许多方法来处理这个问题， 这些方法还没有进入标准实践，因为 A)正确使用这些方法需要详细了解 统计文献，实际应用的例子很少， B)使用这些方法中的大多数需要定制软件和时间- 消耗计算，以及c)它们通常不适合典型的 职业研究的特点。这项拨款中提议的工作将 解决这三个障碍中的每一个。 新的和现有的测量误差方法将应用于重要的 职业数据集。GM/UAW对呼吸道癌症风险的研究 一项对40,000人进行的回溯性队列研究 工人们。新墨西哥州铀矿矿工的研究也是一次回顾 设计，调查氡衰变产物和 通过跟踪3,469名矿工，发现他们有患肺癌的风险。ACE研究是一项交叉研究- 职业接触对健康影响的横断面调查研究 在3550名护士、药剂师和护士助手中使用抗癌药物。总而言之， 在这些研究中，更准确的暴露评估发生在 以下时间段内工作环境的子样本 受试者被跟踪。测量误差模型将从 这些更详细的数据，并用于产生相对风险的估计 将对由于测量误差而产生的偏差进行校正。信心 这些估计的范围将包含额外的可变性 由于“真实”曝光值的不确定性。 回顾性队列、病例对照和横断面资料分析 将考虑使用Logistic回归、COX回归和其他 “故障时间”数据的方法，根据需要。分析报告发表后， 将为其他调查人员提供使用这些工具的可靠范例 技巧。这笔赠款的主要目标是开发适用于 中最常遇到的研究和数据的类型 职业流行病学。

Occupational epidemiologists frequently encounter large errors in measurement of exposures of interest, particularly in studies in which exposure must be retrospectively assessed. Even in studies where exposure assessment is concurrent with the collection of outcome data, measurement errors in occupational studies are often believed to be considerable. In general, these errors lead to bias of effect estimates toward the null and underestimation of the width of confidence intervals. Although statisticians have proposed numerous methods for treating this problem, these methods have not yet made their way into standard practice, because a) the proper use of these methods requires a detailed understanding of the statistical literature, and few examples exist of practical applications, b) the use of most of these methods requires custom software and time- consuming calculations, and c) they are often not appropriate for typical features of occupational studies. The work proposed in this grant will address each of these three obstacles. New and existing measurement-error methods will be applied to important occupational data sets. The GM/UAW study of the risk of respiratory cancer from machining fluids exposure is a retrospective cohort study of 40,000 workers. The New Mexico uranium miners study is also a retrospective design, investigating the relationship between radon decay products and lung cancer risk by following 3,469 miners. The ACE study is a cross- sectional design investigating the health effects of occupational exposure to anti-cancer drugs in 3550 nurses, pharmacists and nurses' aides. In all of these studies, more accurate exposure assessment has occurred in a subsample of work environments within some of the time periods during which the subjects are followed. Measurement error models will be developed from these more detailed data and used to produce estimates of relative risk which will be corrected for bias due to measurement error. Confidence bounds around these estimates will incorporate the additional variability due to uncertainty about "true" exposure values. The analysis of retrospective cohort, case-control and cross-sectional data will be considered using logistic regression, Cox regression, and other methods for "failure time" data, as required. When published, the analyses will provide other investigators with sound examples of the use of these techniques. The primary goal of this grant is to develop methods suitable for the types of studies and data most frequently encountered in occupational epidemiology.