International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 26, 635-642, Copyright © 1997 by International Epidemiological Association
G Benke, M Sim, A Forbes and M Salzberg
BACKGROUND: Occupational hygiene panels are increasingly being used to rate
retrospective occupational exposures to chemicals in community- based
studies. This study aimed to assess the validity, reliability and
feasibility of using such an expert panel in a brain tumour case- control
study. METHODS: A panel of five experts was recruited to rate exposure to
21 chemicals for 298 job descriptions to investigate the level of
agreement. Validity was assessed by comparing the ratings of the experts
for 49 of the jobs with objective quantitative exposure data which existed
for these jobs. Repeatability was assessed by comparing the results for 50
resubmissions. RESULTS: Specificity was high for reporting that exposure
occurred (all above 90%), but sensitivity was variable with values between
48% and 79%. Weaker validity was found for rating exposure level and
exposure frequency. The raters showed the greatest inter-rater agreement
for exposure to three of the 21 chemicals considered (kappa = 0.64 for
cutting fluids, kappa = 0.57 for welding fumes and kappa = 0.42 for
lubricating oils). Intra-rater reliability, based on the 50 resubmitted
jobs, was fair to good (kappa = 0.46, 0.73). CONCLUSIONS: The potential
effect of exposure misclassification from using expert panels was
quantified and found to be a significant source of bias. The optimum
situation occurred where three of the five raters concurred, where an odds
ratio of 2.2 was observed for a true odds ratio of 4.0. Future studies
which plan to use expert panels should screen the experts for their
suitability by validating their performance against jobs with known
exposure data.
ARTICLES
Retrospective assessment of occupational exposure to chemicals in community-based studies: validity and repeatability of industrial hygiene panel ratings
Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
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