Investigating how Pediatric Cancer Incidence Rates compare across Different Environmental Settings

Abstract

Background: Cancer is the second leading cause of death for adults and children in the US. Some studies have found that agricultural environmental settings are associated with specific types of cancer. Most recently a study found that some environmental factors are responsible for a portion of pediatric cancers in California. Since agricultural settings are associated most predominantly with rural areas, are children in rural areas more likely to have higher pediatric cancer incidence rates (IRs) than urban areas?

Methods: To address this question, ANOVA analyses on pediatric cancer IRs and their quintiles were conducted from 2013-2017. The study looked at the IRs and their quintiles across five different urban-rural levels: large metro, medium metro, small metro, micropolitan and noncore counties, where the latter two were rural levels and the former three were urban levels.

Results: The study found that the counties in Oregon and all the US had statistical differences between IRs and quintiles for small and medium metros. The US counties also showed statistical differences in quintiles between small and large metros. Texas was found to have statistical differences in IRs between small and medium metros. Ohio appeared to be statistically different in its quintiles among its urban levels, a Tukey post hoc test failed to show any significance among the urban-rural levels.

Conclusion: While some statistical differences were found, the relatively small sample sizes limit their implications. Future research should focus on accessing the raw data to strengthen conclusions and improve analysis for rural areas.