Abstract
BackgroundTo examine the consistency and likely degree of bias in a study of cardiovascular health, linked with reproductive data over 40 years.MethodsLinkage of vital statistics data of births to female Bogalusa Heart Study participants was compared to interviewing of female participants. The characteristics of participants, the agreement, and demographic, study-related, and medical predictors of discrepancy were analyzed, using kappa statistics, mean and median differences, and logistic regression.ResultsOverall, 3944 (66.7%) of participants were located by one or both sources. The strongest predictor of either linkage or interview was recent and/or frequent participation in the parent study. Agreement between the two sources was generally good (kappa > 0.9 for birthweight and 0.8 for gestational age). Black race, older age, and time since pregnancy were associated with greater discrepancy in reporting of outcomes, but cardiovascular risk factors generally were not.ConclusionsCombining information from multiple sources to increase sample size and outcome ascertainment may be valid, which will increase population health sciences’ ability to leverage the many existing, large-scale sources to answer previously unexplored questions, even those that the data were not initially collected to answer.
Highlights
To examine the consistency and likely degree of bias in a study of cardiovascular health, linked with reproductive data over 40 years
An additional 113 matched on year only. 32 of these had year only provided from vital statistics due to confidentiality restrictions (Texas)
Of the remaining 958 births reported in the interview, 65 occurred prior to 1982 and 105 after 2010, and 51 births were reported to occur outside of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, and would not have been eligible to be linked in the linkage. 734 births to 465 women (62 women with non-matching information in both sources, 38 only vital statistics data, and 365 only interview data) were not included in both sources, but had no obvious reason for a lack of match in the other
Summary
To examine the consistency and likely degree of bias in a study of cardiovascular health, linked with reproductive data over 40 years. With the growing emphasis on use of existing data and cohorts [1, 2], as well as data harmonization to create large analyses across disparate datasets [3,4,5], it becomes more important to understand the degree to which these study designs provide accurate, reliable, and consistent data. Migration limits the possibility of linkage between datasets. Socioeconomic status (SES) is likely to be important, as it affects mobility, health, and quality of reporting, and can lead to serious bias in the conclusions of studies based on these datasets. Previous studies of mortality linkages have found reduced linkage with Hispanic populations, for instance [7, 8]
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