China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Human Health Studies
Published in Barry L. Johnson, Impact of Hazardous Waste on Human Health, 2020
New Jersey Municipalities: Clusters of cancer mortality in New Jersey municipalities were investigated by Najem et al. (1985). Their previous work had shown elevated cancer mortality rates in 20 of New Jersey’s counties in comparison with U.S. national rates for several cancers (Najem et al., 1983). In the 1985 study, Najem et al. obtained death and birth certificates and other data from the vital statistics records of the state of New Jersey. The period 1968–1977 was selected for study because of the availability of vital statistics data. Thirteen anatomical major cancer sites were studied; annual age-adjusted mortality raters (per 100,000 population) were calculated for 194 municipalities (10,000 or more population) listed on death certificates as the community of usual residence. The investigators arbitrarily defined a cancer cluster if a community had: (1) two or more age-adjusted cancer rates that were at least 50% greater than corresponding national rates at a significance level of at least 0.01 and (2) one or more cancer rates that was significantly (set at p< 0.0005) higher than national rates. In 10 New Jersey counties, 23 municipalities met the criteria for cancer clusters; 16 of the 23 were located in the heavily industrial northeast area of the state. Of the cancers in the municipalities with clusters of excessive mortality, 72% were gastrointestinal cancers, especially the stomach, rectum, and colon. Correlation analyses indicated that most of the cancer rates were negatively associated with annual per capita income and positively with the density of chemical toxic waste disposal sites.
Creating the Iranian cancer cluster assessment road map and assessing one reported cancer cluster
Published in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal, 2022
Mina Danaei, Ali Akbar Haghdoost, Mohsen Momeni
Although it is possible that the occurrence of a cancer cluster in an area or in a specific subgroup is as the result of chance, in some situations, cancer cluster may be related to the causal factors including occupational and environmental exposures, improved access to health care services, or clustering of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors (Thun and Sinks 2004). For example, in 2003, there was reported the suspected cluster of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) among French chemical plant workers. Conducting cohort and nested case-control studies suggested the probable causal relationship between the chloracetal- C5 exposure in workplace and RCC occurrence (Iwatsubo et al. 2014).