Comparison of reproductive history gathered by interview and by vital records linkage after 40 years of follow-up: Bogalusa Babies

Abstract

Background To examine the consistency and likely degree of bias in a study of cardiovascular health, linked with reproductive data over 40 years. Methods Linkage of vital statistics data of births to female Bogalusa Heart Study participants was compared to interviewing of female participants. The characteristics of participants, the agreement, and demographic, study-related, and medical predictors of discrepancy were analyzed, using kappa statistics, mean and median differences, and logistic regression. Results Overall, 3944 (66.7%) of participants were located by one or both sources. The strongest predictor of either linkage or interview was recent and/or frequent participation in the parent study. Agreement between the two sources was generally good (kappa > 0.9 for birthweight and 0.8 for gestational age). Black race, older age, and time since pregnancy were associated with greater discrepancy in reporting of outcomes, but cardiovascular risk factors generally were not. Conclusions Combining information from multiple sources to increase sample size and outcome ascertainment may be valid, which will increase population health sciences’ ability to leverage the many existing, large-scale sources to answer previously unexplored questions, even those that the data were not initially collected to answer. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12874-019-0758-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The association between reproductive history and abdominal adipose tissue among postmenopausal women: results from the Women’s Health Initiative

“…The WHI reproductive health history questionnaire may be subject to measurement error due to recall bias given the length of time between reproductive health exposures and time of data collection. However, self-reported reproductive history has been validated in prior research and has been shown to be fairly accurate ( Harville et al , 2019 ; Jung et al , 2021 ). Misclassification or measurement error may be present given crude and self-report measures of reproductive health history (e.g.…”

Trajectories of cardiovascular risk predict pregnancy outcomes: The Bogalusa Heart Study and the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study

“…Outcomes assessed were: small for gestational age(SGA; <10th sex‐specific percentile of birthweight by gestational week for all births in the study), preterm birth (PTB; <37 weeks' gestation), gestational hypertension (GH) and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), all at any pregnancy. Maternal report of birthweight in babies compared with vital statistics was excellent; mean and median differences were statistically indistinguishable from 0 and kappa for categorised birthweight was >0.9; mean difference for gestational age was 0.01 week 20 . Therefore, self‐report data of these outcomes was used.…”

“…Maternal report of birthweight in babies compared with vital statistics was excellent; mean and median differences were statistically indistinguishable from 0 and kappa for categorised birthweight was >0.9; mean difference for gestational age was 0.01 week. 20 Therefore, self-report data of these outcomes was used. As HDP and GDM are under-reported in vital statistics, 21 these complications were compared only to medical records for the women who had them available (n = 381).…”

Lifetime cardiovascular risk factors and maternal and offspring birth outcomes: Bogalusa Babies

“…Vital records data from Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi were also linked to BHS data for 55% (n = 3260) of all women ever seen in the larger study, and an estimated 65% of all women expected to have given birth [ 16 ]. The strongest predictor of either linkage or interview was recent and/or frequent participation in the parent study [ 17 ]. Those who were interviewed had more study visits (median 5) than those who did not (median 2, p<0.01), and were more likely to have participated in the study as an adult.…”

“…Agreement between vital records and interview was good for participants who had data from both sources. After control for clustering within women, the mean discrepancy between the birth certificate and the woman’s report of birthweight was 2 g; for gestational age, the mean difference was 0.01 weeks [ 17 ]. The first singleton livebirth in the dataset was analyzed.…”