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Re: Linearity of covariates and radon exposure - Concrete "theoretically" plausible explanantion!
In response to your question, I was referring the Lubin's papers below.
Lubin J H 2002 The potential for bias in Cohen's ecological analysis of lung
cancer and residential radon J. Radiol. Prot. 22 141-8
J. Radiol. Prot. 22 (September 2002) 307-309
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Reply to Cohen's letter on `The potential for bias in Cohen's ecological
analysis of lung cancer and residential radon'
Dear Sir
In the above letter, Cohen [1] repeats arguments that he as made in the past;
however, the thrust of those comments indicates a fundamental misunderstanding
of the point of my article [2] and indeed of my prior articles on this topic.
It was not and has never been my goal to identify a specific factor (or several
factors) that induced the negative correlation between the estimates of county-
level mean radon concentration and county lung cancer mortality rates. Other
investigators have offered powerful examples, both theoretical and practical,
that Cohen's results are indeed an artifact of ecological regression [3-9]. The
primary purpose of my contributions to this topic has been to demonstrate the
fundamental deficiencies of the methodology itself, in particular the
unboundedness of the bias [10]. The current article [2] demonstrates that the
ecological fallacy always applies, that the addition of county-level adjustment
variables does not reduce bias and increase validity, and that an observed
ecological risk pattern can differ markedly from the true risk pattern. Because
of these deficiencies, epidemiologists have never used ecological regression as
a tool for confirmatory analysis. For radon and lung cancer, results of 25-30
analytic studies of individuals clearly prove the deficiency of the method.
There are numerous risks factors for lung cancer, including smoking, age,
various occupational exposures, air pollution, previous lung diseases, and so
on. In [2], I take an extremely simplified model for lung cancer in radon and
smoking status, and demonstrate that the induced county-level model is non-
linear. A more realistic, and complex, model for lung cancer would include all
principal risk factors, and would also generate a non-linear model at the
county level. Cohen's claims, which are based on his linear (or linear-
quadratic) model for county lung cancer rates, are therefore built on a false
premise, and his continual reference to the `scientific method' is fatuous. One
could equally fit and reject a sinusoidal relationship for county lung cancer
rates and radon concentrations; the factual basis of an inadequate model is
true, but of little inferential value for evaluating risk.
Given two counties with equal proportions of smokers and equal patterns of
smoking, I showed that a positive association for radon and lung cancer at the
individual level can be easily transformed into an observed negative
relationship between lung cancer rates and mean radon levels at the county
level through simple manipulations of the within-county correlation between
smoking and radon [10]. Moreover, the within-county correlations can be
extremely small, on the order of 0.05 to 0.10 (see table 1 in [10]). The
current paper [2] extends that two-county analysis, and shows that the reversal
in trend can be extended to all 1,599 counties in Cohen's regression, even when
the ecological regression is assumed to perfectly fit the data with no residual
variation. Those results demonstrate the potential for extreme distortion of
any ecological regression.
A relatively simple within-county adjustment was needed to show the
compatibility of Cohen's regression with the BEIR VI extrapolation of risk.
Contrary to Cohen's view, the vast majority (84 per cent) of within-county
correlation coefficients for radon and smoking were between -0.3 and 0.3. In
addition, those correlations are artificially elevated due to measurement
error. The implicit assumption is that all covariates are measured without
error. However, it is clear cigarette smoking is very poorly measured. A total
of 85-90 per cent of all lung cancers are attributed to cigarette consumption,
while Cohen's smoking variable explains only about 25 per cent of the variation
in lung cancer rates among counties. Equation (3) in [2] defines the risk-
adjusted radon concentration for a county (denoted w) as represented in the
true county-level regression. The risk-adjusted mean radon depends on the
proportion of smokers and the relative risk of smoking for the county. Thus,
even if errors in smoking status and residential radon concentration were
independent at the individual level, equation (3) shows that the proportion of
smokers and w are correlated. Thus, county-level correlations between smoking
and radon are further distorted by the joint misclassification of two factors.
Finally, as a practical matter, it is worth noting that Puskin has recently
offered a plausible explanation for Cohen's negative correlation [11] that
agrees with the possible role of correlated errors. Puskin conducted ecological
regressions of radon and smoking for several strongly smoking-related cancers
(cancers of the lung, oesophagus, larynx, nasopharynx and oral cavity), weakly
smoking-related cancers (cancers of the bladder and pancreas) and cancers
unrelated to smoking (cancers of the colon, breast and prostate). He found
strong negative correlations between county radon concentrations and cancers
strongly linked to cigarette smoking, weaker correlations between radon and
cancers weakly associated with smoking, and essentially no correlation between
radon and cancers not linked to smoking. Puskin concludes that the negative
trend reported by Cohen for lung cancer is very likely explained by a negative
correlation between smoking and radon levels across counties.
Yours faithfully,
J H Lubin
Below is the reference list for this article:
Reply to Cohen's letter on `The potential for bias in Cohen's ecological
analysis of lung cancer and residential radon'
J H Lubin 2002 J. Radiol. Prot. 22 307-309
HyperCiteŽ linking technology enables you to link to abstracts, preprints or
full text of referenced articles. Links to full text articles from IOP and
other publishers are displayed in bold type (access is subject to subscription
status). More information on reference links is available.
[1] Cohen B L 2002 Response to `The potential for bias in Cohen's ecological
analysis of lung cancer and residential radon' J. Radiol. Prot. 22 305-7
[2] Lubin J H 2002 The potential for bias in Cohen's ecological analysis of
lung cancer and residential radon J. Radiol. Prot. 22 141-8
[3] Greenland S 1992 Divergent biases in ecologic and individual-level studies
Stat. Med. 11 1209-23
[4] Greenland S and Robins J 1994 Invited commentary: ecologic studies -
biases, misconceptions, and counterexamples Am. J. Epidemiol. 139 747-60
[5] Morgenstern H 1995 Ecologic studies in epidemiology: concepts, principles,
and methods Ann. Rev. Public Health 16 61-81
[6] Muirhead C R, Butland B K, Green B M R and Draper G J 1991 Childhood
leukaemia and natural radiation (letter) Lancet 337 503-4
[7] Piantadosi S, Byar D P and Green S B 1988 The ecologic fallacy Am. J.
Epidemiol. 127 893-904
[8] Stidley C A and Samet J M 1994 Assessment of ecologic regression in the
study of lung cancer and indoor radon Am. J. Epidemiol. 65 234-51
[9] Smith B J, Field R W and Lynch C F 1998 Residential Rn-222 exposure and
lung cancer: Testing the linear no-threshold theory with ecologic data Health
Phys. 75 11-7
[10] Lubin J H 1998 On the discrepancy between epidemiologic studies in
individuals of lung cancer and residential radon and Cohen's ecologic
regression Health Phys. 75 4-10
[11] Puskin J S 2002 Smoking as a confounder in ecological correlations of
cancer mortality rates with average county radon levels Health Phys. at press
-----------------------------------------
> On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 epirad@mchsi.com wrote:
>
> > You asked for a concrete theoretical explanation for what was casuing your
> > inverse association - I provided it. If I perform it, it is no longer
> > theoretical.
>
> --I don't ask you to perform any analyses. I only ask for a
> concrete hypothetical example. I can't dig out anything specific from the
> Lubin paper, so I ask that you just be specific about what you are
> referring to. I don't now remember what Lubin paper you are referring to.
>
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