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IDENTIFYING A POPULATION-BASED SAMPLE OF WOMEN OF REPRODUCTIVE AGE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES USING A COMMERCIAL TELEPHONE DIRECTORY
Citation:
Lobdell, G. M. Buck, J. M. Weiner, AND P Mendola. IDENTIFYING A POPULATION-BASED SAMPLE OF WOMEN OF REPRODUCTIVE AGE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES USING A COMMERCIAL TELEPHONE DIRECTORY. Presented at International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, August 11-15, 2002.
Description:
Environmental studies examining reproductive endpoints such as spontaneous abortion or fertility often rely on very select study groups (i.e., convenience samples, highly exposed, etc.) that cannot be easily generalized to the overall population. For exposures limited to a particular group or occupation, these types of studies can be sufficient. However, a large number of environmental exposures affect the broader community. No population-based sampling frameworks exist for selecting couples at risk for pregnancy within the United States. Even sampling women of reproductive age from the general population for research purposes is a challenge. To address this barrier, we utilized a commercially available CD-ROM telephone directory to obtain a population-based sample of women aged 18-44 years. This CD-ROM telephone directory has the capability to select households based on zip code and geo-codes.