Advantages of a Household Survey on Fish Consumption: A Case Study of Gulf Coast Anglers. K. J. Gribben and K. E. Mathews, Alcoa Triangle Economic Research
This paper presents results from a fish consumption study of saltwater anglers. The objective for this study was to assess exposure from ingesting self-caught fish from waters adjacent to a Superfund Site. The methodology used differs from the typical approach for a consumption study because a household survey, not a creel intercept, was used. Creel surveys have an inherent avidity bias due to the unequal probabilities of sampling anglers. Anglers who fish the most have a higher probability of being interviewed, and therefore the results will not reflect the target population. This study demonstrates that using a household-based approach is feasible. Moreover, the household approach also allowed estimation of the fraction ingested of fish from the affected waters. Fish consumption studies based on intercept data are often limited to the affected waterbody. This strategy prevents calculating the fraction ingested, as the only data collected reflect the contaminated source. In this study, anglers were asked about all fish caught and consumed from any coastal waters. Our results reveal that only about 35 percent of all self-caught fish consumed come from the contaminated area, below the usual assumption of 100 percent. The study design also has the advantage of addressing nonresponse bias in the data as well. Almost 2,000 anglers participated in this study, with a response rate of about 83 percent. Some respondents who refused to take the full survey agreed to take an abbreviated version over the phone. Statistical tests compare demographic characteristics and consumption patterns for the respondents and the nonrespondents and indicate whether the results of this study would have been different if nonrespondents had participated. These tests reveal that any differences in respondents and nonrespondents result in an upward bias of the consumption rate and the fraction ingested.
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