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Using multiple imputation to assign pesticide use for non-responders in the follow-up questionnaire in the Agricultural Health Study

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 22, pages 409–416 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Agricultural Health Study (AHS), a large prospective cohort, was designed to elucidate associations between pesticide use and other agricultural exposures and health outcomes. The cohort includes 57,310 pesticide applicators who were enrolled between 1993 and 1997 in Iowa and North Carolina. A follow-up questionnaire administered 5 years later was completed by 36,342 (63%) of the original participants. Missing pesticide use information from participants who did not complete the second questionnaire impedes both long-term pesticide exposure estimation and statistical inference of risk for health outcomes. Logistic regression and stratified sampling were used to impute key variables related to the use of specific pesticides for 20,968 applicators who did not complete the second questionnaire. To assess the imputation procedure, a 20% random sample of participants was withheld for comparison. The observed and imputed prevalence of any pesticide use in the holdout dataset were 85.7% and 85.3%, respectively. The distribution of prevalence and days/year of use for specific pesticides were similar across observed and imputed in the holdout sample. When appropriately implemented, multiple imputation can reduce bias and increase precision and can be more valid than other missing data approaches.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health (grant number Z01-CP010119); and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at the National Institutes of Health (grant number Z01-ES049030). The United States Environmental Protection Agency through its Office of Research and Development collaborated in the research described here. It has been subjected to Agency review and approved for publication. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, Department of Health and Human Services, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, Maryland, USA

    Sonya L Heltshe, Jay H Lubin, Stella Koutros, Joseph B Coble, Bu-Tian Ji, Michael C R Alavanja, Aaron Blair, Gabriella Andreotti & Laura E Beane Freeman

  2. Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Sonya L Heltshe

  3. Department of Health and Human Services, Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA

    Dale P Sandler & Jane A Hoppin

  4. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    Cynthia J Hines

  5. National Exposure Research Laboratory, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA

    Kent W Thomas

  6. Information Management Systems, Rockville, Maryland, USA

    Joseph Barker

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  1. Sonya L Heltshe
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  2. Jay H Lubin
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  6. Michael C R Alavanja
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  8. Dale P Sandler
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  13. Jane A Hoppin
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  14. Laura E Beane Freeman
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Correspondence to Laura E Beane Freeman.

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Heltshe, S., Lubin, J., Koutros, S. et al. Using multiple imputation to assign pesticide use for non-responders in the follow-up questionnaire in the Agricultural Health Study. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 22, 409–416 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2012.31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2012.31

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