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Temporal variability in urinary concentrations of perchlorate, nitrate, thiocyanate and iodide among children

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 22, pages 212–218 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

Perchlorate, nitrate and thiocyanate are ubiquitous in the environment, and human exposure to these chemicals is accurately measured in urine. Biomarkers of these chemicals represent a person's recent exposure, however, little is known on the temporal variability of the use of a single measurement of these biomarkers. Healthy Hispanic and Black children (6–10-year-old) donated urine samples over 6 months. To assess temporal variability, we used three statistical methods (n=29; 153 urine samples): intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), Spearman's correlation coefficient between concentrations measured at different timepoints and surrogate category analysis to assess how well tertile ranking by a single biomarker measurement represented the average concentration over 6 months. The ICC measure of reproducibility was poor (0.10–0.12) for perchlorate, nitrate and iodide; and fair for thiocyanate (0.36). The correlations for each biomarker across multiple sampling times ranged from 0.01–0.57. Surrogate analysis showed consistent results for almost every surrogate tertile. Results demonstrate fair temporal reliability in the spot urine concentrations of the three NIS inhibitors and iodide. Surrogate analysis show that single-spot urine samples reliably categorize participant's exposure providing support for the use of a single sample as an exposure measure in epidemiological studies that use relative ranking of exposure.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)/National Cancer Institute ES012771; NIEHS ES12645; NIEHS/U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Children's Center Grants ES09584 and R827039, the New York Community Trust, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry 01A1ATSDR Grant no. ATU 300014 NYS Empire Clinical Research Investigator Program/CDC/Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine; the Pediatric Environmental Health Fellowship HD049311.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Preventive Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1057, New York, New York 10029, USA,

    Nancy Mervish, Barbara Brenner, Maida P Galvez, Mary S Wolff & Susan L Teitelbaum

  2. Division of Laboratory Sciences, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Ben Blount & Liza Valentin-Blasini

  3. Department of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, 10029, New York, USA

    Maida P Galvez

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  1. Nancy Mervish
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Correspondence to Nancy Mervish.

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Mervish, N., Blount, B., Valentin-Blasini, L. et al. Temporal variability in urinary concentrations of perchlorate, nitrate, thiocyanate and iodide among children. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 22, 212–218 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2011.44

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