Journal of Clinical and Translational Science (Jan 2021)

A distributed geospatial approach to describe community characteristics for multisite studies

  • Patrick H. Ryan,
  • Cole Brokamp,
  • Jeff Blossom,
  • Nathan Lothrop,
  • Rachel L. Miller,
  • Paloma I. Beamer,
  • Cynthia M. Visness,
  • Antonella Zanobetti,
  • Howard Andrews,
  • Leonard B. Bacharier,
  • Tina Hartert,
  • Christine C. Johnson,
  • Dennis Ownby,
  • Robert F. Lemanske,
  • Heike Gibson,
  • Weeberb Requia,
  • Brent Coull,
  • Edward M. Zoratti,
  • Anne L. Wright,
  • Fernando D. Martinez,
  • Christine M. Seroogy,
  • James E. Gern,
  • Diane R. Gold

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/cts.2021.7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5

Abstract

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Understanding place-based contributors to health requires geographically and culturally diverse study populations, but sharing location data is a significant challenge to multisite studies. Here, we describe a standardized and reproducible method to perform geospatial analyses for multisite studies. Using census tract-level information, we created software for geocoding and geospatial data linkage that was distributed to a consortium of birth cohorts located throughout the USA. Individual sites performed geospatial linkages and returned tract-level information for 8810 children to a central site for analyses. Our generalizable approach demonstrates the feasibility of geospatial analyses across study sites to promote collaborative translational research.

Keywords