Quarter 4: October 1, 2021 – December 31, 2021

PA Health and Environment Studies: Study 1 (Childhood cancer case-control study)

Recently Completed

  • We have continued our initial mailing process and have contacted approximately 220 eligible case parents for enrollment and have begun the interviewing process. Our first case interview was completed on October 18th, 2021.
  • We held our second meeting with our External Advisory Board (EAB) in November 2021. We have shifted from meeting once per quarter to once every other month to better facilitate collaborative progress, and we have scheduled our next meeting.
  • We continued to meet with the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PADOH) once per month to share our study progress, updates, and challenges as they arise.

In Progress

  • We will identify and obtain data on age-, gender- and race-matched controls within the study area using birth records from the PADOH Bureau of Vital Statistics Birth Records. We will then obtain contact information for these matched control families.
  • We will complete telephone interviews with case parents in March 2022.
  • We will begin to contact, enroll, and conduct telephone interviews with control parents once case interviews are complete.
  • We will have our next meeting with our EAB in January 2022.

Challenges/Solutions

  • The project staff now work in a hybrid model of in-person and remote workspaces. This allows for increased collaboration and for the mailings to be assembled and disseminated more effectively.
  • After actively recruiting by mail and conducting interviews by phone for the duration of Quarter 3, we have determined a need for alternative study methods to increase response rates and to decrease the burden of participation on interviewees. We will discuss these alternative methods with PADOH in January 2022.

PA Health and Environment Studies: Study 2 (Asthma and birth cohort studies)

Recently Completed

  • Birth outcomes: Our quality assurance checks and descriptive analyses are nearly complete.
  • Asthma: We have begun quality assurance checks and descriptive analyses.
  • Exposure: We have obtained all data required to calculate unconventional natural gas development well activity metrics.

In Progress

  • We are performing quality assurance checks and descriptive analyses for the asthma cohort file.
  • We are combining environmental, exposure, and census data so we can link it to residential location. This information will be used to evaluate residential-level exposures potentially related to unconventional natural gas activities and other industries in the eight-county study area (Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland Counties).

Challenges/Solutions

  • There has been a delay in receiving portions of the data for the birth and asthma cohorts. We are in contact with the data providers and hope to receive those files soon.

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