van Wijngaarden Edwin, Myers Gary J, Thurston Sally W, Shamlaye Conrad F, Davidson Philip W
Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY,14642, USA.
Int Arch Occup Environ Health. 2009 Aug;82(8):1031-41. doi: 10.1007/s00420-009-0402-0. Epub 2009 Feb 11.
The potential for ill-informed causal inference is a major concern in published longitudinal studies evaluating impaired neurological function in children prenatally exposed to background levels of methyl mercury (MeHg). These studies evaluate a large number of developmental tests. We propose an alternative analysis strategy that reduces the number of comparisons tested in these studies.
Using data from the 9-year follow-up of 643 children in the Seychelles child development study, we grouped 18 individual endpoints into one overall ordinal outcome variable as well as by developmental domains. Subsequently, ordinal logistic regression analyses were performed.
We did not find an association between prenatal MeHg exposure and developmental outcomes at 9 years of age.
Our proposed framework is more likely to result in a balanced interpretation of a posteriori associations. In addition, this new strategy should facilitate the use of complex epidemiological data in quantitative risk assessment.
在评估产前暴露于背景水平甲基汞（MeHg）的儿童神经功能受损情况的已发表纵向研究中，错误因果推断的可能性是一个主要问题。这些研究评估了大量发育测试。我们提出了一种替代分析策略，可减少这些研究中测试的比较次数。
利用塞舌尔儿童发育研究中643名儿童9年随访的数据，我们将18个个体终点分组为一个总体有序结局变量以及按发育领域分组。随后，进行有序逻辑回归分析。
我们未发现产前MeHg暴露与9岁时的发育结局之间存在关联。
我们提出的框架更有可能对事后关联进行平衡解读。此外，这种新策略应有助于在定量风险评估中使用复杂的流行病学数据。
