Inter‐rater agreement of assessed prenatal maternal occupational exposures to lead

摘要: BACKGROUND: Industrial hygienists' assessments of prenatal occupational exposures based on parental job histories is a promising approach for population-based case-control studies birth defects and other perinatal outcomes. However, evaluations inter-rater agreement such have been limited. METHODS: We examined lead exposure maternal reports by industrial hygienists in study low weight. A total 178 jobs with potential to during the 6 months before pregnancy end were examined. Three evaluated these independently including probability exposure, type route entry, frequency, duration, intensity. Inter-rater beyond chance was using kappa statistic (κ). RESULTS: In general, greater assessment direct than indirect exposures. varied metric under consideration, being: 1) fair good (i.e., inorganic or organic), respiratory frequency lead, hours per day intensity exposure; 2) poor (inorganic organic); 3) indeterminate organic (organic inorganic), inorganic). CONCLUSION: Retrospective can provide some reliable metrics Reliability may be useful for: quantifying reliability derived metrics; identifying exposure-outcome analyses; determining agents interest. Birth Defects Research (Part A), 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.