Race- and ethnicity-specific characteristics of participants lost to follow-up in a telephone cohort.
The purpose of this study was to describe race- and ethnicity-specific characteristics of subjects lost to follow-up. For a study of community-based health interventions, adult subjects from 11 US communities were initially recruited by random digit dialing and interviewed by telephone in 1988; 2 years later, they were recontacted, and the same survey was administered a second time. Associations with loss to follow-up were assessed in separate models for whites, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. After 2 years, 40.8% of the 5,851 participants were lost to follow-up; cohort attrition was highest among African Americans (51.3%) and lowest among whites (37.5%). Age, aspects of employment, education, marital status, and income were significant independent predictors of loss to follow-up for one or more of the four racial and ethnic groups. Characteristics of subjects lost to follow-up in this telephone cohort differed among various racial and ethnic groups. After adjustment for demographic, socioeconomic, and health status variables, the important behavioral predictors of loss to follow-up were current smoking for whites (p < 0.05), having a high fat diet for African Americans (p < 0.10), consuming one or more alcoholic drinks per day for Hispanic Americans (p < 0.10), and high levels of physical activity for Asian Americans (p < 0.05).
Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle.
B M
BM
Psaty
A
A
Cheadle
T D
TD
Koepsell
P
P
Diehr
T
T
Wickizer
S
S
Curry
M
M
VonKorff
E B
EB
Perrin
D C
DC
Pearson
E H
EH
Wagner
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D015438:Health Behavior / Q000208:ethnology; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010352:Patient Dropouts; D044469:Racial Groups; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013689:Telephone