Quantifying risk over the life course - latency, age-related susceptibility, and other time-varying exposure metrics

Stat Med. 2016 Jun 15;35(13):2283-95. doi: 10.1002/sim.6864. Epub 2016 Jan 10.

Abstract

Identification of the latency period and age-related susceptibility, if any, is an important aspect of assessing risks of environmental, nutritional, and occupational exposures. We consider estimation and inference for latency and age-related susceptibility in relative risk and excess risk models. We focus on likelihood-based methods for point and interval estimation of the latency period and age-related windows of susceptibility coupled with several commonly considered exposure metrics. The method is illustrated in a study of the timing of the effects of constituents of air pollution on mortality in the Nurses' Health Study. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: Cox proportional hazard model; cohort studies; latency; time-to-event data; time-varying exposure.

MeSH terms

  • Age Factors*
  • Aging
  • Air Pollution / adverse effects
  • Air Pollution / statistics & numerical data
  • Disease Susceptibility / epidemiology
  • Environmental Exposure / adverse effects
  • Environmental Exposure / statistics & numerical data
  • Humans
  • Latency Period, Psychological*
  • Likelihood Functions
  • Models, Statistical*
  • Mortality
  • Risk Assessment / statistics & numerical data*
  • Risk Factors
  • Time Factors