Potential for Bias in Epidemiologic Studies That Rely on Glass-based Retrospective Assessment of Radon
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Potential for Bias in Epidemiologic Studies That Rely on Glass-based Retrospective Assessment of Radon
C.R. Weinberg
Abstract
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA
Retrospective assessment of exposure to radon remains the greatest challenge in epidemiologic efforts to assess lung cancer risk associated with residential exposure. An innovative technique based on measurement of
-emitting, long-lived daughters embedded by recoil into household glass may one day provide improved radon dosimetry. Particulate air pollution is known, however, to retard the plate-out of radon daughters. This would be expected to result in a differential effect on dosimetry, where the calibration curve relating the actual historical radon exposure to the remaining
-activity in the glass would be different in smoky and nonsmoky environments. The resulting "measurement confounding" can distort inferences about the effect of radon and can also produce spurious evidence for synergism between radon exposure and cigarette smoking.
Key words
: bias, cigarette smoking, confounding, dosimetry, epidemiologic methods, passive smoking, radon.
Environ Health Perspect
103:1042-1046 (1995)
Address correspondence to C.R. Weinberg, NIEHS, PO Box 12233, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA.
Glinda Cooper, Dale Sandler, and Allen Wilcox provided useful comments.
Received 9 February 1995; accepted 3 August 1995.
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