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Modeling time-location patterns of inner-city high school students in New York and Los Angeles using a longitudinal approach with generalized estimating equations

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 17, pages 233–247 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The TEACH Project obtained subjects' time-location information as part of its assessment of personal exposures to air toxics for high school students in two major urban areas. This report uses a longitudinal modeling approach to characterize the association between demographic and temporal predictors and the subjects' time-location behavior for three microenvironments — indoor-home, indoor-school, and outdoors. Such a longitudinal approach has not, to the knowledge of the authors, been previously applied to time-location data. Subjects were 14- to 19-year-old, self reported non-smokers, and were recruited from high schools in New York, NY (31 subjects: nine male, 22 female) and Los Angeles, CA (31 subjects: eight male, 23 female). Subjects reported their time-location in structured 24-h diaries with 15-min intervals for three consecutive weekdays in each of winter and summer-fall seasons in New York and Los Angeles during 1999–2000. The data set contained 15,009 observations. A longitudinal logistic regression model was run for each microenvironment where the binary outcome indicated the subject's presence in a microenvironment during a 15-min period. The generalized estimating equation (GEE) technique with alternating logistic regressions was used to account for the correlation of observations within each subject. The multivariate models revealed complex time-location patterns, with subjects predominantly in the indoor-home microenvironment, but also with a clear influence of the school schedule. The models also found that a subject's presence in a particular microenvironment may be significantly positively correlated for as long as 45 min before the current observation. Demographic variables were also predictive of time-location behavior: for the indoor-home microenvironment, having an afterschool job (OR=0.67 [95% confidence interval: 0.54:0.85]); for indoor-school, living in New York (0.42 [0.29:0.59]); and for outdoor, being 16-year-old (0.80 [0.67:0.96]), 17-year-old (0.71 [0.54:0.92]), and having an afterschool job (1.29 [1.07:1.56]).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the students and staff of the A Philip Randolph High School of New York City and the Jefferson High School of Los Angeles. Data were collected under a Contract NUATRC-96-01B provided by the Mickey Leland National Urban Air Toxics Center to Professors PL Kinney and JD Spengler. Additional support provided by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) grants to Columbia University's Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan (NIEHS-ES09089) and the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (NIEHS E09600 and US EPA R827027), as well as the Harvard NIEHS Center Grant (NIEHS-ES000002) and the Akira Yamaguchi endowment fund at the Harvard School of Public Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    B Rey deCastro

  2. Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Sonja N Sax & John D Spengler

  3. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA

    Steven N Chillrud

  4. Department of Environmental Health Science, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY, USA

    Patrick L Kinney

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  1. B Rey deCastro
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  2. Sonja N Sax
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  4. Patrick L Kinney
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  5. John D Spengler
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Correspondence to B Rey deCastro.

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Notice — The US Environmental Protection Agency through its Office of Research and Development funded and managed the research described here under Contract 68-D-99-011 to Battelle Memorial Institute. It has been subjected to Agency review and approved for publication.

Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology website (http://www.nature.com/jes).

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deCastro, B., Sax, S., Chillrud, S. et al. Modeling time-location patterns of inner-city high school students in New York and Los Angeles using a longitudinal approach with generalized estimating equations. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 17, 233–247 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jes.7500504

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