Abstract
Air pollution exposure has been shown to be associated with an increased risk of specific cancers. This study investigated whether the number and incidence of the most common cancers in Saudi Arabia were associated with urban air pollution exposure, specifically NO2. Overall, high model goodness of fit (GOF) was observed in the Eastern, Riyadh and Makkah regions. The significant coefficients of determination (r2) were higher at the regional level (r2 = 0.32–0.71), weaker at the governorate level (r2 = 0.03–0.43), and declined slightly at the city level (r2 = 0.17–0.33), suggesting that an increased aggregated spatial level increased the explained variability and the model GOF. However, the low GOF at the lowest spatial level suggests that additional variation remains unexplained. At different spatial levels, associations between NO2 concentration and the most common cancers were marginally improved in geographically weighted regression (GWR) analysis, which explained both global and local heterogeneity and variations in cancer incidence. High coefficients of determination were observed between NO2 concentration and lung and breast cancer incidences, followed by prostate, bladder, cervical and ovarian cancers, confirming results from other studies. These results could be improved using individual explanatory variables such as environmental, demographic, behavioral, socio-economic, and genetic risk factors.
Highlights
A thorough understanding of the consequences of air pollutants on public health is essential for the progress of functioning policies to decrease the negative impact of ambient air pollution [1]
The present study aimed to investigate whether the number and incidence of the most common cancers in Saudi Arabia were significantly associated with exposure to urban air pollution using ordinary least square (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) in a Geographical Information System (GIS)
This study is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia because it relied on reliable cancer data acquired from the Saudi Cancer Registry, the spatial database of cancer incidence rates developed by the authors and the global NO2 map created using the Envisat observations, as measured by the SCIAMACHY instrument on ESA’s Envisat
Summary
A thorough understanding of the consequences of air pollutants on public health is essential for the progress of functioning policies to decrease the negative impact of ambient air pollution [1]. Nyberg et al [4] used nitrogen oxide (NOx)/NO2 and SO2 as air pollution indicators from road traffic and heating and found that urban air pollution increased lung cancer risk. Based on the well-documented urban/rural difference in lung cancer incidence in Oslo, Nafstad et al [5] found that the adjusted risk ratio for developing lung cancer was associated with NOx exposure between 1974 and 1978. Vineis et al [9] assessed the relationship between air pollution (NO2, PM10, and SO2) and lung cancer in Europe. They found an association between lung cancer and NO2, while no obvious association was observed for other pollutants
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