Reconstructing past occupational exposures: how reliable are women's reports of their partner's occupation?

Tagiyeva, N., Semple, S., Devereux, G., Sherriff, A. , Henderson, J., Elias, P. and Ayres, J. G. (2011) Reconstructing past occupational exposures: how reliable are women's reports of their partner's occupation? Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 68(6), pp. 452-456. (doi: 10.1136/oem.2009.052506)

Abstract

Objectives Most of the evidence on agreement between self-and proxy-reported occupational data comes from interview-based studies. The authors aimed to examine agreement between women's reports of their partner's occupation and their partner's own description using questionnaire-based data collected as a part of the prospective, population-based Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Methods Information on present occupation was self-reported by women's partners and proxy-reported by women through questionnaires administered at 8 and 21 months after the birth of a child. Job titles were coded to the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC2000) using software developed by the University of Warwick (Computer-Assisted Structured Coding Tool). The accuracy of proxy-report was expressed as percentage agreement and kappa coefficients for four-, three-and two-digit SOC2000 codes obtained in automatic and semiautomatic (manually improved) coding modes. Data from 6016 couples at 8 months and 5232 couples at 21 months postnatally were included in the analyses. Results The agreement between men's self-reported occupation and women's report of their partner's occupation in fully automatic coding mode at four-, three- and two-digit code level was 65%, 71% and 77% at 8 months and 68%, 73% and 76% at 21 months. The accuracy of agreement was slightly improved by semiautomatic coding of occupations: 73%/73%, 78%/ 77% and 83%/80% at 8/21 months respectively. While this suggests that women's description of their partners' occupation can be used as a valuable tool in epidemiological research where data from partners are not available, this study revealed no agreement between these young women and their partners at the two-digit level of SOC2000 coding in approximately one in five cases. Conclusion Proxy reporting of occupation introduces a statistically significant degree of error in classification. The effects of occupational misclassification by proxy reporting in retrospective occupational epidemiological studies based on questionnaire data should be considered

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Sherriff, Professor Andrea
• Authors: Tagiyeva, N., Semple, S., Devereux, G., Sherriff, A., Henderson, J., Elias, P., and Ayres, J. G.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing > Dental School
• Journal Name: Occupational and Environmental Medicine
• ISSN: 1351-0711