title: A three-dimensional point process model for the spatial distribution of disease occurrence in relation to an exposure source.
abstract: We study methods for how to include the spatial distribution of tumours when investigating the relation between brain tumours and the exposure from radio frequency electromagnetic fields caused by mobile phone use. Our suggested point process model is adapted from studies investigating spatial aggregation of a disease around a source of potential hazard in environmental epidemiology, where now the source is the preferred ear of each phone user. In this context, the spatial distribution is a distribution over a sample of patients rather than over multiple disease cases within one geographical area. We show how the distance relation between tumour and phone can be modelled nonparametrically and, with various parametric functions, how covariates can be included in the model and how to test for the effect of distance. To illustrate the models, we apply them to a subset of the data from the Interphone Study, a large multinational case-control study on the association between brain tumours and mobile phone use.
authors.affiliation: Unit of Statistics, Bioinformatics and Registry, Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark.|Section of Biostatistics, Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Kathrine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Grell
authors.affiliation: CHICAS, Faculty of Health and Medicine, Lancaster University, Lancaster, U.K.
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Diggle
authors.affiliation: Unit of Statistics, Bioinformatics and Registry, Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Kirsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Frederiksen
authors.affiliation: Section of Environment and Radiation, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schüz
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiologi (CREAL), Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cardis
authors.affiliation: Section of Biostatistics, Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Per K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Andersen
mesh_terms: D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology*; D040421:Cell Phone; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields / Q000009:adverse effects*; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D009381:Neoplasms, Radiation-Induced; D062206:Spatial Analysis
keywords: brain tumours; mobile phones; poisson point process; radio frequency fields; spatial point pattern