Potential for bias in epidemiologic studies that rely on glass-based retrospective assessment of radon

Environmental Health Perspectives
C Weinberg

Abstract

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 alpha-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 alpha-activity in the glass would be different in historically 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.

References

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Citations

Jul 8, 1999·American Journal of Public Health·M C AlavanjaR C Brownson
Jun 22, 2018·International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health·Giovanni Maria FerriLuigi Vimercati
Apr 13, 2006·Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. Part a·Daniel KrewskiHomer B Wilcox

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