title: Demographic and Occupational Differences Between Ethnic Minority Workers Who Did and Did Not Complete the Telephone Survey in English.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Limited research indicates that using English language only surveys in prevalence studies conducted in the general population or in specific ethnic populations may result in unrepresentative samples and biased results. In this study, we investigated whether participants from ethnic minorities who chose to answer a study interview in a language other than English (LOTE) differed from those who completed the interview in English.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was conducted within an Australian population-based telephone survey that assessed the prevalence of occupational exposure to carcinogens among 749 ethnic minority workers. We used modified Poisson regression to determine the factors associated with completing the interview in a LOTE.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants who elected to complete the interview in a LOTE differed from those who completed it in English on several factors, including sex, country of birth, education, occupation, and occupational exposure to carcinogens (40% compared with 29%, P < 0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The participants who chose to complete the study interview in their native language had several demographic differences from those participants who completed it in English, and were more likely to be exposed to carcinogens at work. Prevalence studies that offer only English language study instruments are unlikely to produce representative samples of minority groups, and may therefore produce biased results.
authors.affiliation: 1.Cancer Control Research, British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 2.School of Population and Public Health, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 3.Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia tboyle@bccrc.ca.
authors.forename: Terry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Boyle
authors.affiliation: 4.School of Public Health, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia;
authors.forename: Renee N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Carey
authors.affiliation: 5.School of Population Health, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.affiliation: 6.Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Deborah C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Glass
authors.affiliation: 4.School of Public Health, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia;
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fritschi
authors.affiliation: 4.School of Public Health, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia;
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Reid
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001315:Australia; D002273:Carcinogens / Q000633:toxicity; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies / Q000379:methods; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008913:Minority Groups; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D002273:Carcinogens
keywords: bias; carcinogens; ethnicity; language; minority groups; occupation; prevalence