Abstract A07: Exploring the distribution of environmental cancer risk by air toxics using geographic information systems

Abstract

Abstract We examined environmental cancer risk disparities in Metropolitan Charleston by determining the variability in cancer risk and outcomes geographically by racial and socioeconomic characteristics. We mapped total cancer risk from the 2005 National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) and five-year (2006-2010) cancer outcomes (incidence and mortality) from the South Carolina Central Cancer Registry. Data were georeferenced to the 2000 Decennial United States Census tract boundaries in Metropolitan Charleston (i.e. Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester County). A Spearman's rank-order correlation was run to determine the relationship between cancer risk or cancer outcomes and characteristics of environmental justice (percent (%) Black, poverty, and low-income). Correlations were performed in SPSS 22.0. Bivariate choropleth maps were created in ArcGIS 10.2 to represent the geographic associations between cancer data and environmental justice variables. Our findings demonstrate an inverse relationship between cancer risk and five-year cancer incidence (rs = -1.90, p = .040). Cancer risk was positively correlated with % Black (rs = .324) and % poverty (rs = .474), yet negatively related to % income (rs = -.542). Bivariate maps showed that 80% of the tracts with high cancer incidence/high percent Black population were simultaneously high cancer mortality/high Black population tracts. None of the high incidence or high mortality tracts had simultaneously high cancer risk. Findings from this study have implications for reducing place-based environmental cancer disparities. With a better understanding of patterns of risk, public health professionals can tailor interventions and develop community-based environmental health programs that will inform policies to reduce cancer inequities. Citation Format: LaShanta J. Rice, Christopher T. Emrich, Heather M. Brandt, Lucy Annang Ingram, James W. Hardin, Sacoby M. Wilson, Chanita Hughes Halbert. Exploring the distribution of environmental cancer risk by air toxics using geographic information systems. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eighth AACR Conference on The Science of Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; Nov 13-16, 2015; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2016;25(3 Suppl):Abstract nr A07.