Integrating landsat and California pesticide exposure estimation at aggregated analysis scales: Accuracy assessment of rurality
Pesticide exposure estimation in epidemiologic studies can be constrained to analysis scales commonly available for cancer data—census tracts and ZIP codes. Research goals included (1) demonstrating the feasibility of modifying an existing geographic information system (GIS) pesticide exposure method using California Pesticide Use Reports (PURs) and land use surveys to incorporate Landsat remote sensing and to accommodate aggregated analysis scales, and (2) assessing the accuracy of two rurality metrics (quality of geographic area being rural), Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes and the U.S. Census Bureau urban-rural system, as surrogates for pesticide exposure when compared to the GIS gold standard.