Skip Navigation


Biostatistics Advance Access originally published online on June 9, 2009
Biostatistics 2009 10(4):591-602; doi:10.1093/biostatistics/kxp015
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
10/4/591    most recent
kxp015v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Chu, H.
Right arrow Articles by Ibrahim, J. G.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Chu, H.
Right arrow Articles by Ibrahim, J. G.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Estimation and inference for case–control studies with multiple non–gold standard exposure assessments: with an occupational health application

Haitao Chu*

Department of Biostatistics and Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. hchu{at}bios.unc.edu

Stephen R. Cole

Department of Epidemiology, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA

Ying Wei

Department of Biostatistics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA

Joseph G. Ibrahim

Department of Biostatistics and Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA

In occupational case–control studies, work-related exposure assessments are often fallible measures of the true underlying exposure. In lieu of a gold standard, often more than 2 imperfect measurements (e.g. triads) are used to assess exposure. While methods exist to assess the diagnostic accuracy in the absence of a gold standard, these methods are infrequently used to correct for measurement error in exposure–disease associations in occupational case–control studies. Here, we present a likelihood-based approach that (a) provides evidence regarding whether the misclassification of tests is differential or nondifferential; (b) provides evidence whether the misclassification of tests is independent or dependent conditional on latent exposure status, and (c) estimates the measurement error–corrected exposure–disease association. These approaches use information from all imperfect assessments simultaneously in a unified manner, which in turn can provide a more accurate estimate of exposure–disease association than that based on individual assessments. The performance of this method is investigated through simulation studies and applied to the National Occupational Hazard Survey, a case–control study assessing the association between asbestos exposure and mesothelioma.

Keywords: Case–control study; Gold standard; Missing data; Occupational exposure assessment

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received January 11, 2008; revised September 30, 2008; revised March 20, 2009; accepted for publication May 6, 2009.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.