Cancer incidence attributable to air pollution in Alberta in 2012.

Cancer incidence attributable to air pollution in Alberta in 2012. CMAJ Open. 2017 Jun 28;5(2):E524-E528 Authors: Poirier AE, Grundy A, Khandwala F, Friedenreich CM, Brenner DR Abstract BACKGROUND: The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified outdoor air pollution (fine particulate matter [PM2.5]) as a Group 1 lung carcinogen in humans. We aimed to estimate the proportion of lung cancer cases attributable to PM2.5 exposure in Alberta in 2012. METHODS: Annual average concentrations of PM2.5 in 2011 for 22 communities across Alberta were extracted from the Clean Air Strategic Alliance Data Warehouse and were population-weighted across the province. Using 7.5 µg/m3 and 3.18 µg/m3 as the annual average theoretical minimum risk concentrations of PM2.5, we estimated the proportion of the population above this cut-off to determine the population attributable risk of lung cancer due to PM2.5 exposure. RESULTS: The mean population-weighted concentration of PM2.5 for Alberta in 2011 was 10.03 µg/m3. We estimated relative risks of 1.02 and 1.06 for theoretical minimum risk PM2.5 concentration thresholds of 7.5 µg/m3 and 3.18 µg/m3, respectively. About 1.87%-5.69% of incident lung cancer cases in Alberta were estimated to be attributable to PM2.5 exposure. INTERPRETATION: Our estimate of attributable burden is low compared to that reported in studies in other areas of the world owing to the relative...
Source: cmaj - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: CMAJ Open Source Type: research