Re: Radon and Smoking (individual vs aggregate)

[BERNARD L COHEN <blc+@PITT.EDU>]

On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, Field, R. William wrote:



> Dr. Cohen,

>

> You state, "According to the BEIR Reports, it is easy to show that

> collective doses determine the number of deaths. This is a property of LNT.

> Of course, some care is necessary in handling other factors-- collective

> dose to what group of people, ages, sex, etc. -- but health physicists and

> risk assessors have been doing this for decades."

>

> That is one of the points I am trying to explore here a bit more is your

> use of the LNT and collective dose. I guess I don't understand your

> thinking since average dose determines average risk only for linear

> models.  If all the correlations were linear, the ecologic model would be

> fine. How can a county consisting of individuals with very different

> attributes   (which are unknown to you, but assumes should be known if one

> is to use collective dose) have a linear response between county radon

> exposures and lung cancer?



	--My answer above was meant to be simple and straightforward.

There are complications in any simple answer, and for my study, these are

 addressed at great length in my papers





>

> Regarding your reference to BEIR.  Are you interpreting their findings as

> indicating lung cancer risk is linear in radon exposure and other factors?



	--There is nothing to interpret; I just use their mathematical

expressions. But it is certainly true that the BEIR Reports give a linear

relationship between risk and radiation exposure.



************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/