Abstract

Since the 1950s, formal epidemiologic investigations among uranium miners have yielded valuable information about lung cancer hazard from exposure to radon progeny. Early cohort studies used thousands of measurements of radon progeny in mines and a job-exposure matrix approach to assign dose estimates to miners. Over time, exposure estimation in uranium and other underground mines has become increasingly refined, making possible 25 years ago a landmark pooled study that permitted quantitative risk characterization across 11 populations of miners. More recently, case-control studies of residential radon exposure have been conducted and pooled in Europe and North America, with exposure estimation generally based on long-term, modern radon progeny measurements in the homes where subjects resided. Other research has contributed importantly to methods development related to quantifying the impact of errors in dose estimation on risk characterization. This presentation, part of a mini-symposium on the importance of exposure assessment in epidemiology for hazard identification and risk characterization, will emphasize how high quality exposure assessment methodology (and attendant uncertainties) provides the linchpin that connects these landmark studies of occupational and environmental exposure across orders of magnitude of dose.