Brender Jean D, Zhan F Benjamin, Suarez Lucina, Langlois Peter, Gilani Zunera, Delima Ionara, Moody Karen
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Texas A&M School of Rural Public Health, College Station, Texas 77843-1266, USA.
Int J Occup Environ Health. 2006 Apr-Jun;12(2):126-33. doi: 10.1179/oeh.2006.12.2.126.
The authors describe methods for linking birth certificate and birth defect registry data to potential environmental hazards and assess potential confounding factors. Cases of selected birth defects from the Texas Birth Defects Registry were linked to their respective birth/ fetal death records. Comparison births were randomly selected from the 1996-2000 Texas birth records. Maternal addresses were related through a geographic information system to boundaries of hazardous waste sites and point locations of industries. Approximately 89% of maternal addresses of case births and 88% of comparison births were successfully related in distance to these sites and industries. Maternal characteristics associated with living within one mile of these sites included belonging to any group besides non-Hispanic white and having lower education attainment (< 16 years) or a residence within the city limits. In linking environmental and health outcome databases, researchers should be aware of factors that may confound associations between exposure and outcomes.
作者描述了将出生证明和出生缺陷登记数据与潜在环境危害相联系的方法，并评估潜在的混杂因素。从德克萨斯州出生缺陷登记处选取的出生缺陷病例与其各自的出生/胎儿死亡记录相联系。对照出生记录是从1996 - 2000年德克萨斯州出生记录中随机选取的。通过地理信息系统将母亲的住址与危险废物场地边界和工业点位置相关联。病例出生的母亲住址中约89%以及对照出生的母亲住址中约88%在距离上成功与这些场地和工业相关联。与居住在这些场地一英里范围内相关的母亲特征包括不属于非西班牙裔白人以外的任何群体、教育程度较低（<16年）或居住在城市范围内。在将环境与健康结果数据库相联系时，研究人员应意识到可能混淆暴露与结果之间关联的因素。
