Lingering effect: Epidemiological information useful for risk assessment

This article discusses cessation lag and effect lingering and their potential applications to dose–response analysis in risk assessment. Effect lingering can be used to analyze epidemiological data by uncovering the hidden biological implication related to disease endpoints, thereby advancing current characterization efforts and reducing risk assessment uncertainties. To illustrate the approach, as well as to better characterize the role of age of initiation and duration of smoking in carcinogenesis, we apply the concept of lingering effect to smoking and lung cancer data from the Cancer Prevention Study II.