Automation of cleaning and reconstructing residential address histories to assign environmental exposures in longitudinal studies

Abstract Background We have developed an open-source ALgorithm for Generating Address Exposures (ALGAE) that cleans residential address records to construct address histories and assign spatially-determined exposures to cohort participants. The first application of this algorithm was to construct prenatal and early life air pollution exposure for individuals of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) in the South West of England, using previously estimated particulate matter ≤10 µm (PM10) concentrations. Methods ALSPAC recruited 14 541 pregnant women between 1991 and 1992. We assigned trimester-specific estimated PM10 exposures for 12 752 pregnancies, and first year of life exposures for 12 525 births, based on maternal residence and residential mobility. Results Average PM10 exposure was 32.6 µg/m3 [standard deviation (S.D.) 3.0 µg/m3] during pregnancy and 31.4 µg/m3 (S.D. 2.6 µg/m3) during the first year of life; 6.7% of women changed address during pregnancy, and 18.0% moved during first year of life of their infant. Exposure differences ranged from -5.3 µg/m3 to 12.4 µg/m3 (up to 26% difference) during pregnancy and -7.22 µg/m3 to 7.64 µg/m3 (up to 27% difference) in the first year of life, when comparing estimated exposure using the address at birth and that assessed using the complete cleaned address history. For the majority of individuals exposure changed by <5%, but some relatively large changes were seen both in pregnancy and in infancy. Conclusions ALGAE provides a generic and adaptable, open-source solution to clean addresses stored in a cohort contact database and assign life stage-specific exposure estimates with the potential to reduce exposure misclassification.