Accounting for bias and uncertainty resulting from dose measurement errors and other factors

It is the aim of this paper to provide a general appreciation of the issues and problems involved in addressing dose measurement error in making inferences about the dose-response function, and to suggest approaches that might be taken in future analyses of data from radio-epidemiologic studies. The paper is not intended to provide a thoroughly rigorous statistical treatment of the subject, and some assumptions may not be explicitly stated. This paper begins with a general discussion of measurement error, followed by discussion of approaches for handling both random and systematic error. However, dose measurement error is only one of many sources of uncertainty that have not usually been fully accounted for in epidemiologic analyses. At the end of the paper, brief consideration is given to the general problem of quantifying uncertainties from several sources. 15 refs., 1 tab