Impact of geo-imputation on epidemiologic associations in a study of outdoor air pollution and respiratory hospitalization: Geographic imputation and environmental exposure assessment

Publication date: Available online 13 December 2019Source: Spatial and Spatio-temporal EpidemiologyAuthor(s): Rena R. Jones, Francis P. Boscoe, Danielle N. Medgyesi, Edward F. Fitzgerald, Syni-An Hwang, Shao LinAbstractImputation of missing spatial attributes in health records may facilitate linkages to geo-referenced environmental exposures, but few studies have assessed impacts on epidemiologic inference. We imputed patient Census tracts in a case-crossover analysis of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and respiratory hospitalizations in New York State (2000-2005). We observed non-significantly higher PM2.5 exposures, high accuracy of binary exposure assignment (89 to 99%), and marginally different hazard ratios (HRs) (-0.2 to 0.7%). HR differences were greater in urban versus rural areas. Given its efficiency and nominal influence on accuracy of exposure classification and measures of association, geo-imputation is a candidate method to address missing spatial attributes for health studies.
Source: Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology - Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research