A Systematic Review and Meta-Regression Analysis of Lung Cancer Risk and Inorganic Arsenic in Drinking Water

Steven H. Lamm, Hamid Ferdosi, Elisabeth K. Dissen, Ji Li and Jaeil Ahn
Additional contact information
Steven H. Lamm: Center for Epidemiology and Environmental Health, Consultants in Epidemiology and Occupational Health (CEOH), Washington, DC 20016, USA
Hamid Ferdosi: Center for Epidemiology and Environmental Health, Consultants in Epidemiology and Occupational Health (CEOH), Washington, DC 20016, USA
Elisabeth K. Dissen: Center for Epidemiology and Environmental Health, Consultants in Epidemiology and Occupational Health (CEOH), Washington, DC 20016, USA
Ji Li: Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MA 28217, USA
Jaeil Ahn: Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, and Biomathematics, School of Medicine, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057, USA

IJERPH, 2015, vol. 12, issue 12, 1-18

Abstract: High levels (> 200 µg/L) of inorganic arsenic in drinking water are known to be a cause of human lung cancer, but the evidence at lower levels is uncertain. We have sought the epidemiological studies that have examined the dose-response relationship between arsenic levels in drinking water and the risk of lung cancer over a range that includes both high and low levels of arsenic. Regression analysis, based on six studies identified from an electronic search, examined the relationship between the log of the relative risk and the log of the arsenic exposure over a range of 1–1000 µg/L. The best-fitting continuous meta-regression model was sought and found to be a no-constant linear-quadratic analysis where both the risk and the exposure had been logarithmically transformed. This yielded both a statistically significant positive coefficient for the quadratic term and a statistically significant negative coefficient for the linear term. Sub-analyses by study design yielded results that were similar for both ecological studies and non-ecological studies. Statistically significant X-intercepts consistently found no increased level of risk at approximately 100–150 µg/L arsenic.

Keywords: arsenic; lung cancer; drinking water; dose-response; risk analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/12/14990/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/12/14990/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:12:y:2015:i:12:p:14990-15515:d:60144

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().