Coebergh J W
Integraal Kankercentrum Zuid, Eindhoven.
Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd. 1998 Jul 4;142(27):1542-5.
Many a doctor from time to time encounters people concerned about environmental causes of disease, whom he or she cannot answer properly because of lack of knowledge concerning the effects of chemical or physical exposure of the human body (nuclear plants, environmental pollution, electromagnetic radiation). Usually post hoc cluster investigation is very unrewarding especially when there is no clearcut hypothesis or evidence of a causal relation, and when the relative risk is well below 8. From an epidemiological point of view it is surprising that an unexpectedly low frequency of a certain disease in a particular region does not attract this kind of attention. Concerned people will most probably benefit more from risk communication by environmental epidemiologists than from cluster investigation or extensive case-control studies ('fishing expeditions') in case little is known of the etiology.
许多医生时常会遇到一些担心疾病由环境因素所致的人，由于缺乏关于人体化学或物理暴露（核电站、环境污染、电磁辐射）影响的知识，医生无法给出恰当的回答。通常，事后聚集性调查往往收获甚微，尤其是在没有明确的假设或因果关系证据，且相对风险远低于8的情况下。从流行病学的角度来看，某一特定地区某种疾病的发生率意外较低却未引起此类关注，这很令人惊讶。如果对病因知之甚少，那么相关人员很可能从环境流行病学家的风险沟通中获益更多，而非通过聚集性调查或大规模病例对照研究（“探索性研究”）。
