Peter Guttorp
University of Washington 
Seattle

GASP - I can't breathe! How statistics can be used to study pollution control.

Abstract

Environmental pollution limits  (or standards) are often set using data from health 
effect studies. I will describe some of these studies, explain how statistics could 
be (but usually isn't) used to set standards to protect people. There are different 
approaches to the setting of standards, and I will briefly describe some of them. 
Finally I will illustrate how modern statistical tools can be used to better understand 
the consequences of the standards.