Use of big data analysis to investigate the relationship between natural radiation dose rates and cancer incidences in Republic of Korea

Abstract

In this study, we investigated whether there is a significant relationship between the natural radiation dose rate and the cancer incidences in Korea by using a big data analysis. The natural dose rate data for this analysis were the measurement data obtained from the 171 monitoring posts of the 113 administrative districts in Korea over the 10 years from 2007 to 2016. The relative cancer incidences for this analysis were the difference in the cancer patients per hundred thousand people year-on-year in the administrative districts with the five highest and the five lowest natural gamma dose rates each year over the same period. To analyze the correlation between the two variables, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient between the two rates was derived using R, a well-known big data analysis tool. The analysis showed that Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was more than 0.05 and that the correlation between the two variables was not statistically significant.