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Replacing the no‐effect level (NOEL) with bounded effect levels (OBEL and LEBEL)
Author(s) -
Hansson Sven Ove
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.1220
Subject(s) - bounded function , mathematics , econometrics , statistics , mathematical analysis
From experiments or epidemiological studies designed to search for a particular toxic effect, it is in general possible to determine an upper bound for that effect. This observed bounded effect level (OBEL) is defined for both positive and negative experiments. It is non‐zero even for negative experiments, and it is inversely related to the size of the exposed group. The OBEL can be used to determine the linearly extrapolated bounded effect level (LEBEL) for various effect doses. Contrary to no‐observed‐effect' levels (NOELs), LEBEL values are designed to protect against type II (false negative) errors. It is proposed that LEBEL values replace NOELs as a tool for decision‐making. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.