Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25748517›Full record

ArticleThe Annals of occupational hygiene2015

Log-Linear Modeling of Agreement among Expert Exposure Assessors.

Phillip R Hunt, Melissa C Friesen, Susan Sama, Louise Ryan, Donald Milton

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The Annals of occupational hygiene, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

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1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Phillip R Hunt1.Retrospective Observation Studies, Evidera, 430 Bedford St, Suite 300, Lexington, MA 02420, USA phillip.hunt@evidera.com.
Melissa C Friesen2.Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, 9609 Medical Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Susan Sama3.Work Environment Department, University of Massachusetts Lowell, One University Avenue, Lowell, MA 01854, USA.
Louise Ryan4.School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Technology Sidney, 15 Broadway, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia.
Donald Milton5.Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health, University of Maryland School of Public Health, 2234V School of Public Health, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.

Funding

Translational Research Support CoreP30ES000002 · NIEHS · HARVARD UNIVERSITY (SCH OF PUBLIC HLTH) · PI SUSAN A KORRICK · 1985 to 2026
$44.6M
MARYLAND POPULATION RESEARCH CENTERR24HD041041 · NICHD · UNIV OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK · PI JIN, ZHE · 2001 to 2016
$6.6M
COMMUNITY BASED STUDY OF ADULT ONSET ASTHMAR01HL061302 · NHLBI · HARVARD UNIVERSITY (SCH OF PUBLIC HLTH) · PI MILTON, DONALD K · 1999 to 2003
$2.3M
Intramural NIH HHSNHLBI NIH HHS HL61302NICHD NIH HHS R24 HD041041NIEHS NIH HHS 2P30 ES 00002NIEHS NIH HHS P30 ES000002
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundEvaluation of expert assessment of exposure depends, in the absence of a validation measurement, upon measures of agreement among the expert raters. Agreement is typically measured using Cohen's Kappa statistic, however, there are some well-known limitations to this approach. We demonstrate an alternate method that uses log-linear models designed to model agreement. These models contain parameters that distinguish between exact agreement (diagonals of agreement matrix) and non-exact associations (off-diagonals). In addition, they can incorporate covariates to examine whether agreement differs across strata.

methodsWe applied these models to evaluate agreement among expert ratings of exposure to sensitizers (none, likely, high) in a study of occupational asthma.

resultsTraditional analyses using weighted kappa suggested potential differences in agreement by blue/white collar jobs and office/non-office jobs, but not case/control status. However, the evaluation of the covariates and their interaction terms in log-linear models found no differences in agreement with these covariates and provided evidence that the differences observed using kappa were the result of marginal differences in the distribution of ratings rather than differences in agreement. Differences in agreement were predicted across the exposure scale, with the likely moderately exposed category more difficult for the experts to differentiate from the highly exposed category than from the unexposed category.

conclusionsThe log-linear models provided valuable information about patterns of agreement and the structure of the data that were not revealed in analyses using kappa. The models' lack of dependence on marginal distributions and the ease of evaluating covariates allow reliable detection of observational bias in exposure data.

Indexed as

Linear ModelsObserver VariationAsthma, OccupationalHumansModels, TheoreticalOccupational ExposureResearch DesignWorkplaceasthmaepidemiologyexpert judgementexposure assessment methodologysensitization

Identifiers

PMID25748517
PMCPMC4506313

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.