Wire coding in the EMF and Breast Cancer on Long Island Study: relationship to magnetic fields

The Electromagnetic Fields and Breast Cancer on Long Island Study ( EBCLIS ) is a large population-based case–control study investigating possible associations between magnetic fields and breast cancer, and includes a comprehensive set of in-home measurements. We investigated the reproducibility of wire codes, their relation to 24-h measurements of residential magnetic fields, and potential influences, such as housing characteristics, in homes of the 1161 EBCLIS participants. Replicate wire coding was performed in homes originally categorized as having very high current configurations (VHCC) in the Wertheimer–Leeper (W–L) wire coding scheme, and a random sample of other homes (235 residences). Reproducibility was very high, with a κ statistic of 0.83 (95% confidence interval (CI)=0.77–0.89) for the five-category W–L wire codes and 0.91 (95% CI=0.86–0.95) for the three-category Kaune–Savitz (K–S) codes. As levels of W–L and K–S wire codes increased, the mean and median 24-h levels of broadband and harmonic fields in the residences also increased, indicating an association between wire codes and magnetic fields measurements. Regions of Long Island with the highest percentage of homes built before 1950 had the highest percentage of higher current configuration homes, as well as the highest average 24-h broadband and harmonic measurements. Adjustment for age of the home and region did not affect the relation between wire codes and measured magnetic fields. Our results indicate that: (a) a high reproducibility in wire coding was achieved, (b) wire codes were correlated with magnetic fields, and (c) wire code levels were related to the age of the home. The high level of reproducibility suggests that, in our case–control analyses, there will be minimal bias due to misclassification of wire code categories. Results also suggest that wire codes are a proxy measure, to some degree, for current in-home magnetic field measurements in this study.