Impact/Purpose:

The overall objective of the NERL NCS Pilot Project is to investigate optimal approaches for the exposure measurements needed to support the planned Interagency National Children's Study. The objective of this task is to increase the scientific effectiveness of epidemiologic designs while minimizing costs by addressing exposure misclassification.

Description:

The research reported in this task description addresses one of a series of interrelated NERL tasks with the common goal of optimizing the predictive power of low cost, reliable exposure measurements for the planned Interagency National Children's Study (NCS). Specifically, we will evaluate existing exposure measurement techniques from the simplest to the more complex approaches (e.g, from questionnaires and simple surveys to more labor- and cost-intensive indoor and outdoor monitoring or personal and biomarker monitoring methods) in order to determine the predictive power of each technique in estimating acute or chronic personal exposures. The analysis will involve application of existing and new statistical analysis methods in order to characterize the strengths and weaknesses of each measurement method, both individually and in conjunction with another monitoring or survey method. The findings will be presented both in a quantitative form and as a computer program that will be readily useable by the epidemiologist during the design of the National Children's Study.

Record Details:

Record Type:PROJECT

Start Date:10/01/2000

Completion Date:09/01/2003

Record ID: 56200

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Project Information:

Progress :Analysis plans have been completed for the NHEXAS data sets and work plans are now being finalized. A task order contract through GSA has been issued last year to the Anteon Corporation after an open bid to perform additional analysis of NHEXAS data sets, required for the first two components of this project. A task order contract for the development of an "Efficient Exposure Measurement Design for the Birth Cohort Study" has been recently awarded to Battelle/Harvard/Westat consortia led by Battelle. A work plan and a draft literature review have already been developed by the group led by Battelle that identified available exposure data sets and statistical methodologies suitable for extending to the design of longitudinal health effects studies, which may have missing information on key covariates, such as environmental, exposure or biomonitoring measurements on some of the study subjects.



Relevance :This work directly supports the planned interagency National Children's Study by identifying optimum exposure measurement techniques that will increase the power of epidemiologic study designs within the given resources. Exposure component of the longitudinal birth cohort study cannot be conducted without economical, reliable and sufficiently predictive exposure measurement and modeling methods. This research promotes human exposure research by making it more feasible and cost effective. Research also benefits collaborative human exposure and health effects research with NCEA and NHEERL and provides development of protocols for the NCS and other future exposure and health field monitoring studies. In particular, the outputs from this Task will enable the NCS Program Office at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of NIH to develop a study design that will allow measurement of key personal factors and exposure media and pathways, that may be responsible for the recent increased asthma and other neurobehavioral symptoms in children. Since, indirect and indirect exposure measurement tools will both be available for the design of the study, this Task will quantify the relative benefits and costs of each of these techniques in achieving the desired study power for a given study hypothesis and cohort type. Various statistical tools and simulation models will be developed to enable the users to perform these calculations more efficiently. Finally, this research supports the science outlined in the Presidential Task Force responsible for the planning of the NCS by EPA, CDC and NICHD, which will be finally approved by the special Federal Advisory Committee (FAC) established for this study.

Clients :Office of Children Health Protection, Office of Prevention of Pesticides and Toxic Substances, NCEA, NHEERL, DHHS, NIEHS, CDC, NICHD, Scientific community

Project IDs:

ID Code :8817

Project type :OMIS