Intra- and inter-individual variability in location data for two US health-compromised elderly cohorts

This study provides descriptive statistical data on daily time spent in three locations of exposure assessment interest for two panel studies of health-compromised elderly individuals > 65-year-old having multiple days of human activity data. The panel studies include individuals living in Los Angeles (CA) and Baltimore (MD) in various housing types. Three general locations are evaluated: outdoors, in vehicles, and total indoors. Of particular interest is providing information regarding the within-and between-individual variability in the time use data for the three locations. The data are analyzed using non-parametric statistics and alternative statistical models. Within and between variability are evaluated using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs); daily lag-one'' autocorrelation coefficients are also provided for the two samples. There were significant gender differences for selected seasonal and/or day-of-the-week metrics for: (1) outdoor time in Los Angeles, but not in Baltimore, and (2) in-vehicle time in both areas. Elderly women spent more time in these locations than similarly aged men. The ICC statistic indicates that most of the variability in the time spent in the three locations is due to intraindividual variability rather than to inter-individual variability. The results indicate that US Environmental Protection Agency should consider gender, day-of-the-week, and time-of-day data in its exposure modeling of daily activities undertaken by the health-compromised elderly population. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology (2009) 19, 580-592; doi:10.1038/jes.2008.47; published online 27 August 2008