Table 1.
Participant characteristics for the GB-PBDE project and follow-up study
| GB-PBDE Project | Follow-Up Study | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lowell | Cambridge/Brookline | Total | Participants | Did Not Respond | Lost to Follow Up | |
| N | 5 | 41 | 46 | 31 | 8 | 7 |
| Age of Mother (years) | ||||||
| Average | 21.0 | 33.6 | 32.2 | 33.5 | 31.0 | 27.7 |
| Range | 19–23 | 28–41 | 19–41 | 28–41 | 21–39 | 19–36 |
| Age of Baby at time of follow-up study (months) | ||||||
| Average | 11.3 | 12.3 | 12.4 | |||
| Range | (5.8–15) | (9–15) | (10–17) | |||
| Smoking Status | ||||||
| Current smoker | 40% | 2.4% | 6.5% | 3% | 0% | 29% |
| Former smoker | 0% | 12.2% | 10.9% | 12.9% | 12.5% | 0% |
| Never smoker | 60% | 85.4% | 82.6% | 84.1% | 87.5% | 71% |
| Highest Education Level Achieved | ||||||
| HS graduate | 40% | 0% | 6.5% | 0% | 12.5% | 29% |
| Some college | 60% | 0% | 4.3% | 0% | 12.5% | 14% |
| College grad | 0% | 100% | 89% | 100% | 75% | 57.1% |
| Race/Ethnicity | ||||||
| White | 40% | 93% | 87% | 97% | 63% | 86% |
| Asian | 60% | 0% | 7% | 0% | 25% | 0% |
| Latina | 0% | 5% | 4% | 3% | 0% | 14% |
| Af. American | 0% | 2% | 2% | 0% | 13% | 0% |
| At time of GB-PBDE Recruitment: | ||||||
| Already breastfeeding | 63% | 71% | ||||
| Planning to breastfeed | 37%a | 23% | ||||
| Very likely/considering breastfeeding | 6% | |||||
a The follow-up questionnaire asked participants who were not already breastfeeding at the time they enrolled in the biomonitoring study to describe whether they were "planning to breastfeed", "very likely to breastfeed", or "considering breastfeeding." The original GB-PBDE questionnaire did not make this distinction; biomonitoring participants were described as either currently breastfeeding or planning to breastfeed.