Abstract

Background:

Study participants want to receive their biomonitoring results for environmental chemicals, and ethics guidelines encourage reporting back. However, few studies have quantitively assessed participants’ responses to individual exposure reports, and digital methods have not been evaluated.

Objectives:

We isolated effects of receiving personal results vs. only study-wide findings and investigated whether effects differed for Black participants.

Methods:

We randomly assigned a subset of 295 women from the Child Health and Development Studies, half of whom were Black, to receive a report with personal environmental chemical results or only study-wide (aggregate) findings. Reports included results for 42 chemicals and lipids and were prepared using the Digital Exposure Report-Back Interface (DERBI). Women were interviewed before and after viewing their report. We analyzed differences in website activity, emotional responses, and intentions to participate in future research by report type and race using Wilcoxon rank sum tests, Wilcoxon-Pratt signed ranks tests, and multiple regression.

Results:

The personal report group spent approximately twice as much time on their reports as the aggregate group before the post-report-back interview. Among personal-report participants ($n=93$), 84% (78) viewed chemical group information for at least one personal result highlighted on their home page; among aggregate-report participants ($n=94$), 66% (62) viewed any chemical group page. Both groups reported strong positive feelings (curious, informed, interested, respected) about receiving results before and after report-back and mild negative feelings (helpless, scared, worried). Although most participants remained unworried after report-back, worry increased by a small amount in both groups. Among Black participants, higher post report-back worry was associated with having high levels of chemicals.

Conclusions:

Participants were motivated by their personal results to access online information about chemical sources and potential health effects. Report-back was associated with a small increase in worry, which could motivate appropriate action. Personal report-back increased engagement with exposure reports among Black participants. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP9072

中文翻译：

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使用数字暴露报告返回界面 (DERBI) 进行环境暴露研究中返回个人与仅研究范围内的生物监测结果的结果

摘要

背景：

研究参与者希望收到他们对环境化学品的生物监测结果，道德准则鼓励反馈。然而，很少有研究定量评估参与者对个人暴露报告的反应，并且尚未评估数字方法。

目标：

我们将收到个人结果的影响与仅接受研究范围的结果分开，并调查黑人参与者的影响是否不同。

方法：

我们随机分配了来自儿童健康与发展研究的 295 名女性的子集​​，其中一半是黑人，以接收包含个人环境化学结果或仅研究范围（汇总）结果的报告。报告包括 42 种化学品和脂质的结果，并使用数字暴露报告返回界面 (DERBI) 编写。女性在查看报告前后接受了采访。我们使用 Wilcoxon 秩和检验、Wilcoxon-Pratt 符号秩检验和多元回归，按报告类型和种族分析了网站活动、情绪反应和参与未来研究的意图的差异。

结果：

在报告后回访之前，个人报告小组在报告上花费的时间大约是综合小组的两倍。在个人报告参与者中（$n=93$)，84% (78) 的人查看了他们主页上突出显示的至少一项个人结果的化学组信息；在汇总报告参与者中（$n=94$), 66% (62) 浏览了任何化学组页面。两组都报告了在报告前后收到结果的强烈积极情绪（好奇、知情、感兴趣、受尊重）和轻微的消极情绪（无助、害怕、担心）。尽管大多数参与者在反馈后仍然不担心，但两组的担忧都略有增加。在黑人参与者中，较高的报告后担忧与高水平的化学物质有关。

结论：

参与者受到他们个人结果的激励，以访问有关化学来源和潜在健康影响的在线信息。报告与担忧的小幅增加有关，这可能会激发适当的行动。个人报告增加了黑人参与者对曝光报告的参与度。https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP9072