Dose-response is a term that describes a relationship between an exposure and the risk of an out come. A dose-response relationship is one in which increasing levels of exposure are associated with either increasing or decreasing risk of the outcome. Demonstration of a dose-response relationship is considered strong evidence for a causal relationship between the exposure and the outcome, although the absence of a doseresponse relationship does not eliminate the possibility of a causal relationship.

The increase in the exposure can be in its intensity or its duration. Exposure can be characterized in different ways such as the peak exposure; the duration of exposure at or above a set level; average exposure, which is a time-weighted average of exposure; or cumulative exposure, which is the sum ...