Relating health outcomes to environmental factors: Assessing uncertainty in the presence of predicted environmental factors

摘要

Publicly available data from disparate sources are frequently combined for subsequent statistical analyses. Data from different sources are often measured or associated with different geographic or spatial units. Combining them for analysis usually requires prediction of one or more of the variables of interest. Here it is assumed that health outcomes and related covariates are measured at residences (points) and that environmental exposure is measured at monitors (a different set of points). To assess the association between the health outcome and environmental exposure, adjusting for covariates, the environmental exposure is predicted for the points for which health outcomes are observed.