Measurement method
Dose–response relationship
Also: exposure–response, concentration–response
How the size of a health effect changes with the level of exposure. It is what turns an association into evidence of causation and what guideline values are derived from — the concentration at which effects begin, or the slope of risk per unit of exposure.
Why it matters indoors
For irritants such as formaldehyde there is a threshold below which no effect is observed, and the guideline sits below it. For carcinogens such as benzene and radon, and for particulate matter, risk rises without a threshold, so guidelines are set at a level of acceptable risk or at the lowest level the evidence can resolve. Meta-analyses pool many studies to estimate the slope; the WHO 2021 guidelines are built on such pooled exposure–response functions.
In the literature
- Indoor Air Quality and Asthma: Has Unrecognized Exposure to Acrolein Confounded Results of Previous Studies? (2017). Dose-response : a publication of International Hormesis Society. doi:10.1177/1559325817691159 CKB 0520
- Keshava Application of systematic evidence mapping to assess the impact of new research when updating health reference values_ A case example using acrolein (2020). doi:10.1016/j.envint.2020.105956 CKB 0262
- Bishop Estimating risk from ambient concentrations of acrolein across the United States… (2007). Environmental health perspectives. doi:10.1289/ehp.9467 CKB 0713
Studies in the Coridum Knowledge Base in which this term is used. The definition follows standard usage in WHO, ISO and textbook sources; it is not quoted from these papers.
CKB = document number in the Coridum Knowledge Base, our curated library of peer-reviewed studies. Follow the DOI for the original paper.