Assessing Individuals' Exposure to Environmental Conditions Using Residence-based Measures, Activity Location-based...

Area of Science:

• Environmental Health
• Adolescent Health
• Spatial Epidemiology

Background:

• Measuring environmental exposures is crucial for understanding health outcomes.
• Different exposure assessment methods can produce divergent results.
• Adolescent exposure to alcohol outlets serves as a relevant case study.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare different methods for measuring adolescents' exposure to alcohol outlets.
• To determine if these exposure measures are differentially associated with alcohol consumption.

Main Methods:

• Utilized global positioning systems (GPS) to track 231 adolescents (ages 14-16) for four weeks.
• Calculated alcohol outlet exposure using residence-based, activity location-based, and activity path-based approaches.
• Employed Spearman correlations and Tobit models to analyze exposure measures and their association with self-reported alcohol consumption via ecological momentary assessment.

Main Results:

• Exposure measures showed strong correlations within approach types but weaker correlations between types.
• Associations between exposure measures and alcohol consumption were inconsistent across methods.
• Residence-based and activity path-based measures, but not activity location-based measures, were associated with alcohol consumption.

Conclusions:

• Methodological choices in measuring environmental exposures significantly influence study findings.
• The selection of exposure assessment approach impacts the observed associations with health behaviors like adolescent alcohol consumption.