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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Geoffrey Jacquez, PhD and Dunrie Greiling, PhD. TerraSeer, Inc., 516 N. State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, 734-913-1098, dunrie@terraseer.com
The geographic analysis of disease incidence can reveal new information about its spatial patterns and correlates. One of the many hypothesized causes of cancer is environmental exposure to carcinogens. In this study, we combine comprehensive data on cancer incidence from the New York State Department of Health, data on air toxics from the National Air Toxics Assessment database, and new spatial statistical tools to examine patterns and associations between these variables. We found significant spatial pattern in all five cancer-gender combinations examined, both areas with significantly high incidence of cancer and significantly low incidence. We also found significant spatial pattern in the air toxics dataset. For all cancers except lung cancer, the boundaries in cancer incidence and the boundaries in air toxics show no significant spatial association with each other. The patterns for male and female lung cancer incidence, however, do significantly coincide with patterns in the air toxics data. We also contrasted the results of this geographic analysis with those from a non-spatial analysis of the same data. The spatial analysis found patterns in cancer incidence where the nonspatial analysis did not. Also, the spatial analysis identified the important scales to look for further geographic analyses.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Air Pollutants, Cancer
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Data from the Cancer Surveillance Improvement Initiative, NYSDOH.
Data from the USEPA national air toxics assessment ASPEN modeldata.
Geographic analysis software available from TerraSeer, Inc.
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: I am chief scientist at TerraSeer. I have no relation to the NYSDOH or USEPA, just used their data.