GSF National Research Center for Environment and Health, Institute of Epidemiology, Ingolst?dter Landstrasse 1, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany. hauptmann@nih.gov
Abstract:
To examine the time-dependent effects of exposure histories on disease, we estimate a weight function within a generalized linear model. The shape of the weight function, which is modeled as a cubic B-spline, gives information about the impact of exposure increments at different times on disease risk. The method is evaluated in a simulation study and is applied to data on smoking histories and lung cancer from a recent case-control study in Germany.