Spatiotemporal Variations in Gastric Cancer Mortality and Their Relations to Influencing Factors in S County, China.

Zhen Wang,Cheng Cui,Baohua Wang,Hongyan Ren

doi:10.3390/ijerph16050784

Abstract

Increasingly stricter and wider official efforts have been made by multilevel Chinese governments for seeking the improvements of the environment and public health status. However, the contributions of these efforts to environmental changes and spatiotemporal variations in some environmental diseases have been seldom explored and evaluated. Gastric cancer mortality (GCM) data in two periods (I: 2004–2006 and II: 2012–2015) was collected for the analysis of its spatiotemporal variations on the grid scale across S County in Central China. Some environmental and socioeconomic factors, including river, farmlands, topographic condition, population density, and gross domestic products (GDP) were obtained for the exploration of their changes and their relationships with GCM’s spatiotemporal variations through a powerful tool (GeoDetector, GD). During 2004–2015, S County achieved environmental improvement and socioeconomic development, as well as a clear decline of the age-standardized mortality rate of gastric cancer from 35.66/105 to 23.44/105. Moreover, the GCM spatial patterns changed on the grid scale, which was spatially associated with the selected influencing factors. Due to the improvement of rivers’ water quality, the distance from rivers posed relatively larger but reversed impacts on the gridded GCM. In addition, higher population density and higher economic level (GDP) acted as important protective factors, whereas the percentage of farmlands tended to have adverse effects on the gridded GCM in period II. It can be concluded that the decline of GCM in S County was spatiotemporally associated with increasingly strengthened environmental managements and socioeconomic developments over the past decade. Additionally, we suggest that more attentions should be paid to the potential pollution caused by excessive pesticides and fertilizers on the farmlands in S County. This study provided a useful clue for local authorities adopting more targeted measures to improve environment and public health in the regions similar to S County.

Highlights

Rapid and huge economic growth has occurred in China during the four decades of reform and opening up
These results showed that S County achieved clear socioeconomic development and environmental improvement during 1995–2015
1:1 line (Figure 3), which indicates that the Gastric cancer mortality (GCM) of these grids declined while the others increased in the differences of the gridded GCM among these two periods were significant (p < 0.1) according to the results of the paired T-test. These results showed that the GCM of S County possessed a decline trend during 2004–2015

Summary

Introduction

Rapid and huge economic growth has occurred in China during the four decades of reform and opening up. China is facing a huge burden of disease during the process of economic and social development. More than 2.8 million people died of cancer in 2015, and gastric cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in China, causing the death of nearly 500,000 people in 2015 [1], Int. J. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 784; doi:10.3390/ijerph16050784 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion