RE: Health Metaphysics

[Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>]

On Wed, 8 Mar 2000, Frame, Paul wrote:
>  
> Its probably safe to assume that there are higher percentages of smokers in
> urban industrialized areas than in rural areas.  It is also probably the
> case that indoor radon levels are lower in urban areas (even limiting
> ourselves to single family dwellings) - the lower wind speeds in urban areas
> should result in higher indoor static pressures than would be found in rural
> homes. Hence one might predict an inverse correlation between radon levels
> and the incidence of lung cancer if individual exposures and smoking habits
> are unknown. I suppose we might also expect a higher level of air pollution
> in urban areas as well as the increased incidence of smoking. I believe Dr.
> Cohen has made efforts to correct for this type of confounding, but my point
> is that we don't need to imagine "unknown forces"

	--These effects are all well known and well quantified. I found
that urban houses have 25% lower radon levels than rural houses, and
there is good evidence  that urban people smoke about 25% more
frequently. I call this the "urban-rural" problem and it is treated in
great detail in my 1995 paper, Sec. L. It does very little to reduce our
discrepancy with LNT. The fact that such a strong correlation has so
little effect did much to convince me that confounding factors cannot
explain our discrepancy. But I am open to suggestions for other potential
confounding factors.


Bernard L. Cohen
Physics Dept.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: (412)624-9245
Fax: (412)624-9163
e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu


************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html