API PUBL 4648-1996

$30.55

Human Neurobehavioral Study Methods: Effects of Subject Variables on Research Results

Published By	Publication Date	Number of Pages
API	1996	107

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Description

Behavioral tests are used to detect and characterize the effects of neurotoxic chemical exposures in human populations. These tests have been used extensively in worksite research, but little attention has been paid to the potentially large influence of subject variables on test performance. This project sought to evaluate the impact of two subject variables, education and cultural group, on widely used tests of neurotoxic insult. Subjects aged 26-45 were recruited through a range of adverting. Behavioral tests from the two consensus neurotoxicity test batteries (established by the World Health Organization and the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry) were administered to 715 people with O-18 years of education. The cultural groups studied were European-descent majority, Native American Indian, African-American, and Latin-American populations. Differences in educational level and locale (rural vs urban) and gender were examined in the majority population.

Education, cultural group, age and gender all affected the outcome of the behavioral tests studied as revealed by ANOVA, MANOVA and multiple regression techniques. Education followed by cultural group explained the most variance in the tests studied. More importantly, years of educational and cultural group had 13-25% shared variance on the cognitive tests, suggesting that these factors should be controlled in the design of a study rather than in the statistical analysis. Failure to do so can lead to false conclusions about the presence or absence of neurotoxic effects.

Four critical confounding factors which can mimic neurotoxic effects, or obscure them, in workplace epidemiological investigations are defined by this study for 34 measures drawn from 22 frequently used tests. Also established are key factors needed to plan and analyze a competent cross-sectional workplace study, statistical power analyses, and the distributions for each test.

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