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Construction of residential histories to estimate long-term environmental exposures in the California Teachers Study cohort

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology (2024)Cite this article

Abstract

Environmental epidemiologic studies using geospatial data often estimate exposure at a participant’s residence upon enrollment, but mobility during the exposure period can lead to misclassification. We aimed to mitigate this issue by constructing residential histories for participants in the California Teachers Study through follow-up (1995–2018). Address records have been collected from the US Postal Service, LexisNexis, Experian, and California Cancer Registry. We identified records of the same address based on geo-coordinate distance (≤250 m) and street name similarity. We consolidated addresses, prioritizing those confirmed by participants during follow-up questionnaires, and estimating the duration lived at each address using dates associated with records (e.g., date-first-seen). During 23 years of follow-up, about half of participants moved (48%, including 14% out-of-state). We observed greater mobility among younger women, Hispanic/Latino women, and those in metropolitan and lower socioeconomic status areas. The cumulative proportion of in-state movers remaining eligible for analysis was 21%, 32%, and 41% at 5, 10, and 20 years post enrollment, respectively. Using self-reported information collected 10 years after enrollment, we correctly identified 94% of movers and 95% of non-movers as having moved or not moved from their enrollment address. This dataset provides a foundation for estimating long-term environmental exposures in diverse epidemiologic studies in this cohort.

Impact

  • Our efforts in constructing residential histories for California Teachers Study participants through follow-up (1995–2018) benefit future environmental epidemiologic studies. Address availability during the exposure period can mitigate misclassification due to residential changes, especially when evaluating long-term exposures and chronic health outcomes. This can reduce differential misclassification among more mobile subgroups, including younger women and those from lower socioeconomic and urban areas. Our approach to consolidating addresses from multiple sources showed high accuracy in comparison to self-reported residential information. The residential dataset produced from this analysis provides a valuable tool for future studies, ultimately enhancing our understanding of environmental health impacts.

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Fig. 1: Cumulative percentage of non-movers, one-time and twice or more movers within California each year since enrollment (i.e., those who remain eligible for each follow-up year).

Data availability

All of the data, code, and resources associated with this publication are available for research use. The California Teachers Study welcomes all such inquiries and encourages individuals to visit https://www.calteachersstudy.org/for-researchers.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the women who have participated in the study. We also thank the CTS staff and steering committee for their continuous involvement, maintenance, and oversight of the study. A full list of CTS team members is available at https://www.calteachersstudy.org/team.

Funding

The California Teachers Study and the research reported in this publication were supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number U01-CA199277; P30-CA033572; P30-CA023100; UM1-CA164917; and R01-CA077398. This work has also been funded by the NIH Superfund Hazardous Substance Research and Training Program P42-ES033719; NIH National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) P30 Center for Environmental Health and Justice P30-ES9089; NIH Kirschstein National Research Service Award Institutional Research Training Grant T32-ES007322; NIH Predoctoral Individual Fellowship F31-ES035306; University of California, Breast Cancer Research Program 16ZB-8501; R01-CA170394; and the Intramural Research Program of the NCI. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute or the National Institutes of Health. The collection of cancer incidence data used in the California Teachers Study was supported by the California Department of Public Health pursuant to California Health and Safety Code Section 103885; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Program of Cancer Registries, under cooperative agreement 5NU58DP006344; the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program under contract HHSN261201800032I awarded to the University of California, San Francisco, contract HHSN261201800015I awarded to the University of Southern California, and contract HHSN261201800009I awarded to the Public Health Institute. The opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the State of California, Department of Public Health, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or their Contractors and Subcontractors, or the Regents of the University of California, or any of its programs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Danielle N. Medgyesi & Tiffany R. Sanchez

  2. Division of Health Analytics, Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine, Beckman Research Institute, City of Hope, Duarte, CA, USA

    Emma S. Spielfogel, Kristen E. Savage, Jennifer L. Benbow & James V. Lacey Jr

  3. Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

    Mary H. Ward & Rena R. Jones

  4. Center for Data-Driven Insights and Innovation, University of California Health, Oakland, CA, USA

    Jennifer L. Benbow

Authors
  1. Danielle N. Medgyesi
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  2. Emma S. Spielfogel
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  3. Mary H. Ward
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  4. Rena R. Jones
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  5. Kristen E. Savage
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  6. Jennifer L. Benbow
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  7. James V. Lacey Jr
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  8. Tiffany R. Sanchez
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Contributions

JVL, JLB, KES, and ESS were responsible for participant engagement, which involved managing and gathering residential addresses of study participants. DNM, MHW, RRJ and TRS conceived of the project. All authors contributed to the study’s approach. DNM completed the analysis and drafted the manuscript. All authors reviewed and contributed to the content of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Danielle N. Medgyesi.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval

Ethical approvalThe California Teachers Study has been approved by the institutional review boards at City of Hope, the University of California San Diego, the University of California San Francisco, and the University of California at Irvine, and participants provided informed consent. This study was approved by the institutional review boards of City of Hope and Columbia University.

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Medgyesi, D.N., Spielfogel, E.S., Ward, M.H. et al. Construction of residential histories to estimate long-term environmental exposures in the California Teachers Study cohort. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-023-00631-0

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