Probability of Causation and the Attributable Proportion Risk |
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Authors: | Louis Anthony Cox Jr |
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Institution: | Arthur D. Little, Inc., 35-329 Acorn Park, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140, and Operations Research Center, E-40, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139. |
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Abstract: | A uranium miner who smokes develops lung cancer: what is the probability that radiation, rather than tobacco, caused it? This paper briefly explains the principles and limits of probability models for which this question makes sense, and then shows how principles of risk accounting can be applied to obtain a solution to the general problem of attributing risk in the presence of joint, possibly interacting, causes. A procedure for calculating each factor's “share” in a jointly caused risk is proposed, and shown to be a generalization of the “probability of causation” concept. Problems of implementation and interpretation for the proposed attribution procedure are discussed, and illustrative error bounds are derived for a simple decision rule, in which probability of causation or attributable risk share calculations are made using aggregate data as a proxy for unknown individual data. |
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Keywords: | Probability of causation attributable risk risk attribution risk accounting joint causes |
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