Accuracy of residential geocoding in the Agricultural Health Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Environmental exposure assessments often require a study participant's residential location, but the positional accuracy of geocoding varies by method and the rural status of an address. We evaluated geocoding error in the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), a cohort of pesticide applicators and their spouses in Iowa and North Carolina, U.S.A.

Methods

For 5,064 AHS addresses in Iowa, we compared rooftop coordinates as a gold standard to two alternate locations: 1) E911 locations (intersection of the private and public road), and 2) geocodes generated by matching addresses to a commercial street database (NAVTEQ) or placed manually. Positional error (distance in meters (m) from the rooftop) was assessed overall and separately for addresses inside (non-rural) or outsid

SUBMITTER: Jones RR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4203975 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature