Vol. 118, No. 3 PerspectivesOpen AccessUsing Land Cover Data to Characterize Living Environments of Geocoded Addresses: Estes et al. Respond Maurice G. Estes Jr., Mohammad Z. Al-Hamdan, William Crosson, Sue M. Estes, Dale Quattrochi, Shia Kent, and Leslie Ain McClure Maurice G. Estes Jr. Search for more papers by this author , Mohammad Z. Al-Hamdan Search for more papers by this author , William Crosson Search for more papers by this author , Sue M. Estes Search for more papers by this author , Dale Quattrochi Search for more papers by this author , Shia Kent Search for more papers by this author , and Leslie Ain McClure Search for more papers by this author Published:1 March 2010https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0901863RAboutSectionsPDF ToolsDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InReddit We appreciate the insightful and informative letter about the methodology used in our article (Estes et al. 2009). We agree with Zandbergen about the methodology employed by the SAS/GIS software used for geocoding the REGARDS (REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke)participants. As one of the REGARDS study goals, we plan to re-geocode the participants using a more accurate method. However, because our article focused on classifying the “living environment” (defined as urban, suburban, and rural) and because most people do not spend the majority of their time at their house or within the raw resolution area (30 m × 30 m), the geocoding errors that are in the levels of tens of meters become less relevant. This is true especially when we resample to a coarser resolution (1 km vs. 30 m), as we did in our methodology to characterize the participants’ living environment.With respect to the misclassification that may be introduced due to the resolution used to classify participants, Zandbergen is correct that resampling to different resolutions did change the classification of the participants. However, the results of the analyses were consistent regardless of the resolution of the classification, indicating that while this may influence the exposure itself, it does not influence the relationship between the exposure and the outcome.ReferenceEstes MG, Al-Hamdan MZ, Crosson W, Estes SM, Quattrochi D, Kent Set al.. 2009. Use of remotely sensed data to evaluate the relationship between living environment and blood pressure. Environ Health Perspect 117:1832-183820049200. Link, Google ScholarFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 118, No. 3 March 2010Metrics About Article Metrics Publication History Originally published1 March 2010Published in print1 March 2010 Financial disclosuresPDF download License information EHP is an open-access journal published with support from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. All content is public domain unless otherwise noted. Note to readers with disabilities EHP strives to ensure that all journal content is accessible to all readers. However, some figures and Supplemental Material published in EHP articles may not conform to 508 standards due to the complexity of the information being presented. If you need assistance accessing journal content, please contact [email protected]. Our staff will work with you to assess and meet your accessibility needs within 3 working days.