Evaluation of reports of periconceptual occupational exposure: Maternal-assessed versus industrial hygienist-assessed exposure

Background While the number of women entering the workforce has grown, so h as the importance of investigating occupational reproductive hazards. The o bjective of this study was to examine the concordance between maternal-asse ssed and industrial hygienist-assessed exposure to four classes of occupati onal agents - video display terminals, paints, solvents, and agricultural c hemicals. Methods Case (n = 87) and control (n = 102) mothers who participated in a p opulation-based study of orofacial clefts provided occupational histories a nd exposure (yes/no) to selected classes of agents for the one-year period prior to their child's delivery. Two industrial hygienists reviewed the occ upational histories and assigned mothers an exposure status for each class of agent. Using industrial hygienist-assessed exposure as the "gold standar d", sensitivity and specificity of maternal reports were calculated for eac h class of agent. Kappa statistics were calculated for the study population to account for chance agreement between the two exposure assessment method s. Results Sensitivity estimates for cases were the highest for video display terminals (77%) and lowest for agricultural chemicals (14%). Respective est imates for controls were 74% and 14%. Specificity estimates tended to be hi gh for both groups. Kappa values ranged from 0.16-0.45. Conclusions With regard to the classes of agents examined, these data sugge st screening questions alone may not be the preferred method of obtaining o ccupational exposure histories, evert when the time period of interest is f airly short and recent. Am. J. Ind. Med. 36:573-578, 1999. (C) 1999 Wiley-L iss, Inc.