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Within-person reproducibility of red blood cell mercury over a 10- to 15-year period among women in the Nurses’ Health Study II

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 26, pages 219–223 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Most epidemiologic studies of methylmercury (MeHg) health effects rely on a single measurement of a MeHg biomarker to assess long-term exposures. Long-term reproducibility data are, therefore, needed to assess the reliability of a single measure to reflect long-term exposures. In this study, we assessed within-person reproducibility of red blood cell (RBC) mercury (Hg), a marker of methyl-mercury, over 10–15 years in a sample of 57 women. Fifty-seven women from the Nurses’ Health Study II provided two blood samples 10–15-years apart (median: 12 years), which were analyzed for mercury levels in the red blood cells (B-Hg*). To characterize within-person reproducibility, we estimated correlation and intraclass correlation coefficients (r and ICC) across the two samples. Further, we compared different prediction models, including variables on fish and seafood consumption, for B-Hg* at the first sample, using leave-one-out cross-validation to assess predictive ability. Overall, we observed strong correlations over 10–15 years (r=0.69), as well as a high ICC (0.67; 95% CI: 0.49, 0.79). Fish and seafood consumption reported concurrently with the first B-Hg* sample accounted for 26.8% of the variability in that B-Hg*, giving a correlation of r=0.52. Despite decreasing B-Hg* levels over time, we observed strong correlations and high ICC estimates across B-Hg* measured 10–15 years apart, suggesting good relative within-person stability over time. Our results indicate that a single measurement of B-Hg* likely is adequate to represent long-term exposures.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by grants from the Department of Defense (W81XWH0810499), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (T32ES007069) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS ES0002). The Nurses’ Health Study II is funded in part by NIH UM1 CA176726. We acknowledge the Channing Division of Network Medicine of Brigham and Women’s Hospital for its management of the Nurses’ Health Study II.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, Philippe Grandjean & Marc G Weisskopf

  2. Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Andrea L Roberts

  3. Department of Environmental Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

    Flemming Nielsen & Philippe Grandjean

  4. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Shelley S Tworoger & Marc G Weisskopf

  5. Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Shelley S Tworoger

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  1. Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou
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  2. Andrea L Roberts
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Correspondence to Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou.

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Kioumourtzoglou, MA., Roberts, A., Nielsen, F. et al. Within-person reproducibility of red blood cell mercury over a 10- to 15-year period among women in the Nurses’ Health Study II. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 26, 219–223 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/jes.2014.82

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