Burdorf A
Institute of Occupational Health, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Scand J Work Environ Health. 1993 Feb;19(1):50-4. doi: 10.5271/sjweh.1504.
Variability of exposure can be a source of information bias in studies with exposure assessment based on the use of a sample of workers in each occupational group under study. This paper presents a method to assess the rate of exposure misclassification from the magnitude of overlap of exposure distributions and, consequently, to evaluate the bias to risk estimates in cross-sectional and prospective studies. The percentage of work-time with trunk flexion and rotation was studied in five occupational groups. The rate of misclassification of exposure to trunk flexion and rotation varied from 0.03 to 0.35. Misclassification below 0.10 was found only for occupational groups with at least a 14-fold difference in mean exposure. Higher rates of misclassification can easily bias the risk estimates up to 50%. In the cross-sectional design the odds ratio was more sensitive to bias than the prevalence rate ratio. The estimate of the relative risk in a prospective study design was the least biased.
在基于对每个所研究职业群体中的工人样本进行使用来进行暴露评估的研究中，暴露的变异性可能是信息偏倚的一个来源。本文提出了一种根据暴露分布重叠程度来评估暴露错误分类率的方法，从而评估横断面研究和前瞻性研究中风险估计的偏倚。对五个职业群体中躯干屈伸和旋转的工作时间百分比进行了研究。躯干屈伸和旋转暴露的错误分类率在0.03至0.35之间变化。仅在平均暴露至少相差14倍的职业群体中发现错误分类低于0.10。较高的错误分类率很容易使风险估计产生高达50%的偏倚。在横断面设计中，优势比比患病率比更容易受到偏倚影响。前瞻性研究设计中相对风险的估计偏差最小。
