Sensitivity of EMF effects on childhood leukemia to confounding by residential mobility

Authors: Amoon AT, Arah OA, Kheifets L.

Year: 2019 May 29

Category: Epidemiology

Journal: Cancer Causes Control

DOI: 10.1007/s10552-019-01189-9

URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31144088

Abstract

Abstract Overview

Purpose: This study investigates the impact of residential mobility as a confounder in evaluating the relationship between electromagnetic field (EMF) exposures and childhood leukemia.

Methods and Simulation

  • A hybrid simulation study was conducted using a synthetic dataset derived from an existing study.
  • The simulation aimed to explore how different scenarios of uncontrolled confounding by mobility could affect the correlation between EMF exposure and childhood leukemia.
  • Two major hypotheses regarding the infectious etiology of childhood leukemia were considered.

Empirical Analysis and Findings

The results confirmed that increasing the strength of the assumed relationship between mobility, exposure, and outcome amplifies potential biases. However, no scenario completely negated the previously observed associations between EMF exposure and childhood leukemia.

Conclusions

The study acknowledges that while residential mobility introduces some bias in estimating the effects of EMF on childhood leukemia, it is unlikely to account entirely for the observed associations, which suggests a genuine link between EMF exposures and childhood leukemia.

EMF childhood leukemia confounding factors epidemiology residential mobility simulation study sensitivity analysis
← Back to Stats