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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Anil Namdeo
This is the final published version of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by The International Journal of Health Sciences and Research, 2015.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
Decision making process in a real world is invariably based on perception/belief expressed in words or sometimes in numeric terms and not in probability terms. Therefore, the expert’s knowledgebase assumes significant importance in quantification of health effects. WHO Centre for Environment and Health, Europe in its 2005 document states: “There is little evidence for a causal relationship between asthma prevalence/incidence and air pollution in general, though the evidence is suggestive of a causal association between the prevalence/incidence of asthma symptoms and living in close proximity to traffic”. The attempts made in the past in this direction used statistical mechanics in modelling epidemiological data, population characteristics, and pollution parameters. The paper is an attempt to rank respiratory diseases, based on health effects due to indoor and outdoor air pollutants, using combined belief/plausibility/ignorance for all the possible combinations of identified respiratory diseases by UK pulmonologists. The mathematical formulations used in the study are: Fuzzy Relational Algebra and Evidence Theory. The approach outlined in this paper, is based on belief or basic evidence assignment (Bea) of experienced pulmonologists only and there is no need to collect epidemiological data accumulated over a period of years to quantify health effects. The overall outcome of the study reveals that the combined belief of Pulmonologists for Simple Bronchitis Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) with lung cancer as the sub set of COPD or Asthma or Heart Attack is 0.68 with possibility 0.95.
Author(s): Namdeo A, Yadav J, Deshpande A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: International Journal of Health Sciences and Research
Year: 2015
Volume: 5
Issue: 12
Pages: 346-354
Online publication date: 15/12/2015
Acceptance date: 26/11/2015
Date deposited: 20/01/2016
ISSN (electronic): 2249-9571
Publisher: The International Journal of Health Sciences and Research
URL: https://www.ijhsr.org/IJHSR_Vol.5_Issue.12_Dec2015/50.pdf
