Lifetime residential history collection and processing for environmental data linkages in the ABCD study

Abstract

By using geospatial information such as participants' residential history along with external datasets of environmental exposures, ongoing studies can enrich their cohorts to investigate the role of the environment on brain-behavior health outcomes. However, challenges may arise if clear guidance and key quality control steps are not taken at the outset of data collection of residential information. Here, we detail the protocol development aimed at improving the collection of lifetime residential address information from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. This protocol generates a workflow for minimizing gaps in residential information, improving data collection processes, and reducing misclassification error in exposure estimates.

Keywords: ABCD study; Environment; Geospatial data; Lifetime addresses; Residential history.

Figure 1.

Roadmap to developing and refining a residential address protocol

Figure 2:. An example of the ABCD residential history data collection interface.

A) A visual example of how the interface appears to staff collecting residential data. B) Address entry and geocoding interface.

Figure 3.

Examples of complete and missing residential histories using the visual timeline feature in the ABCD Study PIID system. The respective calendar years of the child’s life are shown on the x-axis, whereas each unique residential address is listed on the y-axis of the timeline. Bars show the time in which the child lived at each address as well as the time spent at that location (full-time = blue; green = half-time) or highlight missing data for the participant (yellow). A) Example of complete, simple residential history of a participant. B) Example of residential history with missing information for a participant. C) Example of incomplete residential history and overlapping addresses for a participant.