TY - JOUR
T1 - Benefits of cooperation among large-scale cohort studies and human biomonitoring projects in environmental health research
T2 - An exercise in blood lead analysis of the Environment and Child Health International Birth Cohort Group
AU - Nakayama, Shoji F.
AU - Espina, Carolina
AU - Kamijima, Michihiro
AU - Magnus, Per
AU - Charles, Marie Aline
AU - Zhang, Jun
AU - Wolz, Birgit
AU - Conrad, André
AU - Murawski, Aline
AU - Iwai-Shimada, Miyuki
AU - Zaros, Cécile
AU - Caspersen, Ida Henriette
AU - Kolossa-Gehring, Marike
AU - Meltzer, Helle Margrete
AU - Olsen, Sjurdur F.
AU - Etzel, Ruth A.
AU - Schüz, Joachim
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2019 The Authors
PY - 2019/7/18
Y1 - 2019/7/18
N2 - A number of prospective cohort studies are ongoing worldwide to investigate the impact of foetal and neonatal exposures to chemical substances on child health. To assess multiple exposure (mixture) effects and low prevalence health outcomes it is useful to pool data from several studies and conduct mega-data-analysis. To discuss a path towards data harmonization, representatives from several large-scale birth cohort studies and a biomonitoring programme formed a collaborative group, the Environment and Child Health International Birth Cohort Group (ECHIBCG). In this study, an intra-laboratory trial was performed to harmonize existing blood lead measurements within the groups' studies. Then, decentralized analyses were conducted in individual countries' laboratories to evaluate blood lead levels (BLL) in each study. The measurements of pooled BLL samples in French, German and three Japanese laboratories resulted in an overall mean blood lead concentration of 8.66 μg l−1 (95% confidence interval: 8.59–8.72 μg l−1) with 3.0% relative standard deviation. Except for China's samples, BLL from each study were comparable with mean concentrations below or close to 10 μg l−1. The decentralized multivariate analyses revealed that all models had coefficients of determination below 0.1. Determinants of BLL were current smoking, age >35 years and overweight or obese status. The three variables were associated with an increase in BLL in each of the five studies, most strongly in France by almost 80% and the weakest effect being in Norway with only 15%; for Japan, with the far largest sample (~18,000), the difference was 36%. This study successfully demonstrated that the laboratory analytical methods were sufficiently similar to allow direct comparison of data and showed that it is possible to harmonize the epidemiological data for joint analysis. This exercise showed the challenges in decentralized data analyses and reinforces the need for data harmonization among studies.
AB - A number of prospective cohort studies are ongoing worldwide to investigate the impact of foetal and neonatal exposures to chemical substances on child health. To assess multiple exposure (mixture) effects and low prevalence health outcomes it is useful to pool data from several studies and conduct mega-data-analysis. To discuss a path towards data harmonization, representatives from several large-scale birth cohort studies and a biomonitoring programme formed a collaborative group, the Environment and Child Health International Birth Cohort Group (ECHIBCG). In this study, an intra-laboratory trial was performed to harmonize existing blood lead measurements within the groups' studies. Then, decentralized analyses were conducted in individual countries' laboratories to evaluate blood lead levels (BLL) in each study. The measurements of pooled BLL samples in French, German and three Japanese laboratories resulted in an overall mean blood lead concentration of 8.66 μg l−1 (95% confidence interval: 8.59–8.72 μg l−1) with 3.0% relative standard deviation. Except for China's samples, BLL from each study were comparable with mean concentrations below or close to 10 μg l−1. The decentralized multivariate analyses revealed that all models had coefficients of determination below 0.1. Determinants of BLL were current smoking, age >35 years and overweight or obese status. The three variables were associated with an increase in BLL in each of the five studies, most strongly in France by almost 80% and the weakest effect being in Norway with only 15%; for Japan, with the far largest sample (~18,000), the difference was 36%. This study successfully demonstrated that the laboratory analytical methods were sufficiently similar to allow direct comparison of data and showed that it is possible to harmonize the epidemiological data for joint analysis. This exercise showed the challenges in decentralized data analyses and reinforces the need for data harmonization among studies.
KW - Birth cohort
KW - Child
KW - Environment
KW - Harmonization
KW - HBM
KW - Human biomonitoring
KW - Lead
KW - Lead (PubChem CID: 5352425)
KW - Pregnancy
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijheh.2019.07.005
DO - 10.1016/j.ijheh.2019.07.005
M3 - Article
SN - 1438-4639
VL - 222
SP - 1059
EP - 1067
JO - International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health
JF - International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health
IS - 8
ER -