© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.
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The precautionary approach: from Birth to childhood Epidemiology for risk assessment: losing the beginner's confidence
Josep M. Antó** Respiratory and Environmental Health Research Unit, Municipal Institute of Medical Research (IMIM-IMAS), Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Correspondence: Josep M. Antó, Respiratory and Environmental Health Research Unit, Municipal Institute of Medical Research (IMIM-IMAS), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain e-mail: jmantoa@imim.es
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Like most epidemiologists, I learned that epidemiological methods are particularly useful for providing background information for risk assessment as an important tool for health protection and something I had the opportunity to apply from the beginning. In the eighties, using daily observations of emergency room visits for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and applying Box–Jenkins models, we challenged that the usual air pollution standards at that time protected the health of the exposed populations with a margin of safety as intended.1 Although the publication of the paper was accompanied by a faultfinding editorial, subsequent research proved a wide replication of our results.2 The subsequent translation of the results of time-series studies into more stringent standards for air pollution has, in general, faced two contentious difficulties: the lack of a plausible biological explanation and the difficulties of translating the association between current low levels of air pollution and mortality into a population-based
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The precautionary principle: a relevant new concept for risk assessment and health protection |
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The precautionary approach: from birth to childhood |
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