Deployment Health Research Department, Naval Health Research Center, 140 Sylvester Rd, San Diego, CA 92106, USA.
BMC Med Res Methodol. 2013 Jul 11;13:90. doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-13-90.
Longitudinal cohort studies are highly valued in epidemiologic research for their ability to establish exposure-disease associations through known temporal sequences. A major challenge in cohort studies is recruiting individuals representative of the targeted sample population to ensure the generalizability of the study's findings.
We evaluated nearly 350,000 invited subjects (from 2004-2008) of the Millennium Cohort Study, a prospective cohort study of the health of US military personnel, for factors prior to invitation associated with study enrollment. Multivariable logistic regression was utilized, adjusting for demographic and other confounders, to determine the associations between both deployment experience and prior healthcare utilization with enrollment into the study.
Study enrollment was significantly greater among those who deployed prior to and/or during the enrollment cycles or had at least one outpatient visit in the 12 months prior to invitation. Mental disorders and hospitalization for more than two days within the past year were associated with reduced odds of enrollment.
These findings suggest differential enrollment by deployment experience and health status, and may help guide recruitment efforts in future studies.
纵向队列研究因其能够通过已知的时间序列来建立暴露-疾病关联，在流行病学研究中具有很高的价值。队列研究的一个主要挑战是招募具有代表性的目标样本人群的个体，以确保研究结果的普遍性。
我们评估了近 350,000 名受邀参与者（2004-2008 年），这些参与者来自千禧年队列研究，这是一项针对美国军人健康的前瞻性队列研究，研究了邀请前与研究参与相关的因素。我们利用多变量逻辑回归，调整了人口统计学和其他混杂因素，以确定部署经历和之前的医疗保健利用与参与研究之间的关联。
在入组周期之前和/或期间部署过的人，或在邀请前 12 个月内至少有一次门诊就诊的人，其研究参与率显著更高。精神障碍和过去一年住院超过两天与入组的可能性降低有关。
这些发现表明，部署经历和健康状况不同的人入组率不同，这可能有助于指导未来研究的招募工作。
