Strengthening policy-relevant evidence in environmental epidemiology: dose-response curve estimation for varying exposure distributions

Project Narrative Environmental epidemiology aims to produce policy-relevant evidence for the protection of the public’s health, but individual studies of environmental pollutants have limited exposure distributions, and the difficulty of making inferences across studies to inform regulatory standards is rarely addressed. Further, estimating dose-response curves for endocrine disrupting chemicals is notoriously difficult at low exposure levels, complicating the ascertainment of an accurate dose-response curve that spans the full range of exposure levels. This is the first study to use causal inference methods to articulate the assumptions individual studies need to meet in order for risk estimates to 1) be comparable with other studies of different exposure distributions and 2) be utilized to create accurate dose-response curves to inform regulatory standards.