The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of non-respondents and estimate the potential non-response bias by comparing the respondents with non-respondents from a nested case-control study of brain tumors. The nested case-control study was conducted in eight Pratt & Whitney plants in Connecticut. Information about demographic and some work related variables of 239 cases and 116 controls who responded to an interview, as well as 483 cases and 604 controls who did not respond were obtained from the plant records. Pearsons chi-square test was used to test whether these common known variables were differently distributed between respondents and non-respondents by case-control status. There were no differences detected between the respondents and the non-respondents in the control group. However, significant distribution differences were identified between the case respondents and the case non-respondents with respect to the variables: age at hire, age at termination, and duration of time worked. Multivariate logistic regression was conducted to specify which variables were significantly associated with non-response. The probability of being a non-respondent in the case group was significantly associated with age at hire and age at termination. Furthermore, case-control status, age at hire, and duration of time worked were significant predictors for being a non-respondent in the whole dataset. In addition, the non-response biases in brain tumor risk associated with age at hire and age at termination were calculated by comparing risk among respondents and all subjects. The bias varied from -9% to 43%, indicating that difference between the respondents and the non-respondents may result in a large bias in the risk estimate for brain tumors in the nested case-control study. Our study has great public health relevance because survey data with low response rate could undermine the results of a case-control study of some exposure of interest and a specific disease, or worse lead to erroneous conclusions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12032009-175645 |
| Date | 27 January 2010 |
| Creators | Xu, Hui |
| Contributors | Marike Vuga, Jeanine Buchanich, Gary M. Marsh, Ada O. Youk |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12032009-175645/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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