Childhood leukemia in metropolitan regions in the United States: a possible relation to population density?
- 1 September 1995
- journal article
- Published by Springer Nature in Cancer Causes & Control
- Vol. 6 (5) , 383-388
- https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00052177
Abstract
Following recent research in Great Britain, the geographic incidence of leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among White children in three metropolitan regions of the United States (San Francisco-Oakland, CA; Detroit, MI; and Atlanta, GA) during 1978–82 has been analyzed using census tract-specific data. There was no evidence of a general tendency for cases to cluster geographically, in contrast to results from Britain. Further, rates did not vary with median income or education levls for census tracts. However, there was a statistically significant increasing trend in incidence rates with increasing population density: relative risk for highest relative to lowest category=1.4 (95% percent confidence interval [CI]=1.1–2.0) for White population density, and 1.4 (CI=1.0–2.0) for total population density. The interpretation of these findings is unclear and further investigation is required. It is possible that population density is acting as a surrogate for some virus-related factor.Keywords
This publication has 22 references indexed in Scilit:
- Age of exposure to infections and risk of childhood leukaemia.BMJ, 1993
- Epidemiology of childhood leukemia.BMJ, 1993
- Rural population mixing and childhood leukaemia: effects of the North Sea oil industry in Scotland, including the area near Dounreay nuclear site.BMJ, 1993
- Childhood leukaemia and poliomyelitis in relation to military encampments in England and Wales in the period of national military service, 1950-63.BMJ, 1991
- Absence of leukaemia clustering on Greek islandsThe Lancet, 1991
- Community lifestyle characteristics and risk of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in childrenThe Lancet, 1990
- Evidence from population mixing in British New Towns 1946-85 of an infective basis for childhood leukaemiaThe Lancet, 1990
- Review of Reported Increases of Childhood Cancer Rates in the Vicinity of Nuclear Installations in the UKJournal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A: Statistics in Society, 1989
- Extra-Poisson Variation in Log-Linear ModelsJournal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C: Applied Statistics, 1984
- Testing for homogeneity: II. The Poisson distributionBiometrika, 1966