A Method to Model Season of Birth as a Surrogate Environmental Risk Factor for Disease

Jimmy Thomas Efird and Susan Searles Nielsen
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Jimmy Thomas Efird: Cancer Research Center of Hawaii and John A. Burns School of Medicine, 651 Ilalo Street, Biosciences Bldg. 320-B, Honolulu, HI 96813, USA
Susan Searles Nielsen: Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Cancer Epidemiology Research Cooperative, POB 19024, 1100 Fairview Ave North, MS M4-C308, Seattle, WA 98109-1024 USA

IJERPH, 2008, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-5

Abstract: Environmental exposures, including some that vary seasonally, may play a role in the development of many types of childhood diseases such as cancer. Those observed in children are unique in that the relevant period of exposure is inherently limited or perhaps even specific to a very short window during prenatal development or early infancy. As such, researchers have investigated whether specific childhood cancers are associated with season of birth. Typically a basic method for analysis has been used, for example categorization of births into one of four seasons, followed by simple comparisons between categories such as via logistic regression, to obtain odds ratios (ORs), confidence intervals (CIs) and p-values. In this paper we present an alternative method, based upon an iterative trigonometric logistic regression model used to analyze the cyclic nature of birth dates related to disease occurrence. Disease birth-date results are presented using a sinusoidal graph with a peak date of relative risk and a single p-value that tests whether an overall seasonal association is present. An OR and CI comparing children born in the 3-month period around the peak to the symmetrically opposite 3-month period also can be obtained. Advantages of this derivative-free method include ease of use, increased statistical power to detect associations, and the ability to avoid potentially arbitrary, subjective demarcation of seasons.

Keywords: Sinusoidal logistic regression; season of birth; childhood cancer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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