Small-Area Estimation Approach to Estimating the Association Between Traffic-Generated Air Pollution and Early Childhood Respiratory Problems

• Activity Number: 86
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Sunday, August 1, 2010 : 4:00 PM to 5:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Mine Cetinkaya*+
• Companies: University of California, Los Angeles
• Keywords: small area estimation ; air pollution ; survey data ; pregnancy outcomes ; childhood respiratory problems

Abstract

In our study we are exploring the relationship between early childhood respiratory problems and air pollution exposure during pregnancy. This is modeled using data from air pollution measurements and birth certificates from every birth in LA County in 2003. In addition we have more detailed survey data from 4% mothers about risk factors during pregnancy and a subsequent survey on about half of these mothers on respiratory health of the children. The motivation of this research is the increasing missing data problem in these surveys. Our methodology works by dividing LA County into small geographic areas where women within each area are similar in terms of demographics and pollution exposure. Since our data includes only a few observations in each of these areas we use small area estimation techniques to estimate the prevalence of early childhood respiratory problems for all of LA County.