Journal article
Geostatistical hierarchical model for temporally integrated radon measurements
Journal of agricultural, biological, and environmental statistics, Vol.13(2), pp.140-158
2008
DOI: 10.1198/108571108X312896
Abstract
In the search for important determinants of disease, epidemiologists often face the challenging task of retrospectively estimating exposures of interest. Such is the case in modern studies of the lung cancer risk posed by residential radon—a naturally occurring radioactive gas. Assessment of past radon exposures is limited because measurements are not generally available for the locations at which study subjects spent time prior to enrollment. In such settings, there is a need for prediction at unmeasured geopraphic sites and time periods. We develop a hierarchical Bayesian goestatistical model for predicting unmeasured radon concentrations over space and time. Our work arises from a study of residential radon in Iowa, where measurements were taken as yearly averages and subject to detector measurement error. Much attention has been given lately to geostatistical methods for data that are obtained as integrated averages over geographic regions. We show how these techniques work in the time domain as well. Unlike the numerical approximations that are needed to integrate over geographic regions, we are able to provide closed-form solutions for the integration that must be performed over temporal periods. Our approach is illustrated with radon concentrations measured from 614 different geographic sites and 799 time periods.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Geostatistical hierarchical model for temporally integrated radon measurements
- Creators
- Brian J Smith - University of IowaJacob J Oleson - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of agricultural, biological, and environmental statistics, Vol.13(2), pp.140-158
- Publisher
- Springer-Verlag
- DOI
- 10.1198/108571108X312896
- ISSN
- 1085-7117
- eISSN
- 1537-2693
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2008
- Academic Unit
- Biostatistics; Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center
- Record Identifier
- 9984227044902771
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