title: The Impact of Environment and Occupation on the Health and Safety of Active Duty Air Force Members: Database Development and De-Identification.
abstract: Preparing data for medical research can be challenging, detail oriented, and time consuming. Transcription errors, missing or nonsensical data, and records not applicable to the study population may hamper progress and, if unaddressed, can lead to erroneous conclusions. In addition, study data may be housed in multiple disparate databases and complex formats. Merging methods may be incomplete to obtain temporally synchronized data elements. We created a comprehensive database to explore the general hypothesis that environmental and occupational factors influence health outcomes and risk-taking behavior among active duty Air Force personnel. Several databases containing demographics, medical records, health survey responses, and safety incident reports were cleaned, validated, and linked to form a comprehensive, relational database. The final step involved removing and transforming personally identifiable information to form a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliant limited database. Initial data consisted of over 62.8 million records containing 221 variables. When completed, approximately 23.9 million clean and valid records with 214 variables remained. With a clean, robust database, future analysis aims to identify high-risk career fields for targeted interventions or uncover potential protective factors in low-risk career fields.
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology Consult Service, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Department, U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, 2510 5th Street, Building 840, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7913.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Erich
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology Consult Service, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Department, U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, 2510 5th Street, Building 840, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7913.
authors.forename: Melinda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eaton
authors.affiliation: Aeromedical Research Department, U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, 2510 5th Street, Building 840, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7913.
authors.forename: Ryan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mayes
authors.affiliation: Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130.
authors.forename: Lamar
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pierce
authors.affiliation: Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Knight
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology Consult Service, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Department, U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, 2510 5th Street, Building 840, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7913.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Genovesi
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology Consult Service, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Department, U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, 2510 5th Street, Building 840, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7913.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Escobar
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology Consult Service, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Department, U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, 2510 5th Street, Building 840, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7913.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mychalczuk
authors.affiliation: Epidemiology Consult Service, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Department, U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, 2510 5th Street, Building 840, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7913.
authors.forename: Monica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Selent
mesh_terms: D003628:Database Management Systems / Q000639:trends; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects*; D016272:Occupational Health / Q000592:standards*; D009790:Occupations; D012308:Risk Management / Q000379:methods