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Updated: Jun 13, 2026
06:55
Assessment of Maternal Vascular Remodeling During Pregnancy in the Mouse Uterus
Published on: December 5, 2015
Differences in exposure assignment between conception and delivery: the impact of maternal mobility
Philip J Lupo1, Elaine Symanski, Wenyaw Chan
1Division of Epidemiology and Disease Control, University of Texas School of Public Health, 1200 Herman Pressler Drive, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology
|April 27, 2010
Summary
Maternal residential mobility during pregnancy did not significantly alter benzene exposure assessments in Texas. Using delivery address for exposure estimates is generally reliable, as most moves are short-distance and similar between cases and controls.
Area of Science:
- Environmental epidemiology
- Reproductive health
- Geospatial analysis
Background:
- Maternal residence at delivery is often used to estimate environmental exposures during pregnancy.
- Residential mobility during pregnancy can lead to exposure misclassification if only the delivery address is considered.
- Accurate exposure assessment is crucial for understanding reproductive outcomes and environmental health risks.
Purpose of the Study:
- To describe residential mobility patterns among pregnant women in Texas.
- To assess the impact of residential changes on benzene exposure misclassification.
- To compare exposure estimates based on conception address versus delivery address.
Main Methods:
- Compared residential mobility between neural tube defect cases and controls from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (NBDPS) in Texas.
- Utilized U.S. EPA's Assessment System for Population Exposure Nationwide (ASPEN) to estimate benzene exposure at census tract levels.
- Employed kappa statistics and mixed-effects ordinal logistic regression to compare exposure quartiles derived from conception and delivery addresses.
Main Results:
- Approximately 30% of case mothers and 24% of control mothers moved during pregnancy; mobility differences were not statistically significant.
- Case mothers who moved did so earlier in pregnancy compared to control mothers (P = 0.01).
- Good agreement (kappa = 0.78) was observed between benzene exposure quartiles estimated at conception and delivery addresses.
- Mixed-effects regression indicated no significant difference in benzene exposure quartile assignment using delivery address versus conception address (OR = 1.03).
Conclusions:
- Maternal residential movement during pregnancy in this Texas population is typically over short distances.
- Residential mobility patterns did not significantly differ between cases and controls.
- Using the delivery address for benzene exposure assessment in this population is unlikely to cause significant misclassification.
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