TY - JOUR T1 - Effect of recall period on the reporting of occupational injuries among older workers in the Health and Retirement Study. JF - Am J Ind Med Y1 - 1995 A1 - Zwerling, Craig A1 - Nancy L. Sprince A1 - Robert B Wallace A1 - Charles S. Davis A1 - Paul S. Whitten A1 - Steven G Heeringa KW - Accidents, Occupational KW - Adult KW - Aged KW - Bias KW - Cross-Sectional Studies KW - Data collection KW - Female KW - Humans KW - Incidence KW - Linear Models KW - Male KW - Mental Recall KW - Middle Aged KW - Models, Statistical KW - Reproducibility of Results KW - Retirement KW - Risk Factors KW - Time Factors KW - United States AB -

Studies of injury morbidity often rely on self-reported survey data. In designing these surveys, researchers must chose between a shorter recall period to minimize recall bias and a longer period to maximize the precision of rate estimates. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, which employed a recall period of 1 year, we examined the effect of the recall period on rates of occupational injuries among older workers as well as upon rate ratios of these injuries for nine risk factors. We fit a stochastic model to the occupational injury rates as a function of time before the interview and used this model to estimate what the injury rates would have been had we used a 4-week recall period. The adjusted occupational injury rate of 5.9 injuries per 100 workers per year was 36% higher than the rate based on a 1-year recall period. Adjustment for recall period had much less effect on rate ratios, which typically varied by < 10%. Our work suggests that self-reported surveys with longer recall periods may be used to estimate occupational injury rates and also may be useful in studying the associations between occupational injuries and a variety of risk factors.

PB - 28 VL - 28 IS - 5 U1 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8561168?dopt=Abstract U4 - Accidents, Occupational/Adult/Bias (Epidemiology)/Morbidity/Gender/Incidence/Middle Age/Models, Statistical/Recall/Reproducibility of Results/Retirement/Risk Factors/Support, U.S. Government--PHS/Time Factors ER -