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Mortality due to haematological cancer in cities close to petroleum refineries in Spain

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Abstract

Controversy exists as to whether working or living in the vicinity of a petroleum refinery (RF) increases the risk of haematological cancer (HC). The European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register obliges petroleum refineries to notify their emissions of toxic substances which include carcinogenic substances. Our objective is to determine if living in the proximity of an RF is associated with a greater risk of mortality due to HC in the census tracts (CTs) of the Spanish cities of Bilbao, Cartagena, Castellón, La Coruña, Huelva, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife. This is an ecological study of mortality in the years 1996–2007 which includes 968 CTs with 1,263,371 inhabitants. Exposure has been measured as the distance from the centroid of each CT to the RF. The Besag–York–Mollié autoregressive spatial model has been fitted by R-INLA to estimate the relative risk (RR) and 95 % credible intervals (95 % CrI) for distance in quintiles. The most distant quintile has been taken as the reference. A total of 2,574 persons died of HC. The distances from the CTs to RFs ranged from 0.5 to 22.5 km (median = 7.6 km). All of the RRs for the quintiles of distances in Huelva were greater than 1. Statistically significant excess risk was shown in Cartagena in the nearest CT (1.8 to 6.8 km; RR = 1.43, 95 % CrI 1.02 to 2.02). Radial effects have not been detected between the CT of residence and the petroleum RF in mortality due to HC in any of the cities.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Enric Rovira, Anna Cuadras, and Marc Saez for their collaboration; Monica Ballesta and Carmen Navarro for their help in the manuscript; and Javier García-Perez, Pablo Fernández-Navarro, and Rebeca Ramis for their clarifications and support for all matters related to the PRTR and analysis capabilities.

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Health Research Fund from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Carlos III Institute of Health) [FIS-FEDER: PI081713, PI080662, PI08/0330, PI081488, PI081978] and FUNCIS (Fundación Canaria de Investigación y Salud).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Regional Health Council, Murcia, Spain

    Lluís Cirera

  2. Consortium for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública—CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain

    Lluís Cirera, Laia Palència, Marisa Estarlich, Agustín Montes-Martínez, Antonio Daponte-Codina & Gonzalo López-Abente

  3. Department of Health and Consumer Affairs, Basque Government, Vitoria, Spain

    Francisco Cirarda

  4. Public Health Agency of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Laia Palència

  5. Center for Public Health Research—CSISP, Valencia, Spain

    Marisa Estarlich

  6. Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Agustín Montes-Martínez

  7. Dirección Gral. de Salud Pública, Servicio Canario de Salud, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

    Pedro Lorenzo

  8. Observatorio de Salud y Medio Ambiente de Andalucía (OSMAN), Escuela Andaluza de Salud Pública, Consejería de Salud, Junta de Andalucía, Granada, Spain

    Antonio Daponte-Codina

  9. Department of Environmental Epidemiology and Cancer, National Centre for Epidemiology, Carlos III Institute of Health, Madrid, Spain

    Gonzalo López-Abente

Authors
  1. Lluís Cirera
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  2. Francisco Cirarda
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  3. Laia Palència
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  4. Marisa Estarlich
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  5. Agustín Montes-Martínez
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  6. Pedro Lorenzo
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  7. Antonio Daponte-Codina
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  8. Gonzalo López-Abente
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lluís Cirera.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Table S1

Haematological cancer mortality RR and 95 % CrI in women and men by distance quintile (km) from the census tracts to the petroleum refinery in Spanish cities, 1996–2007 (DOC 147 KB)

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Cirera, L., Cirarda, F., Palència, L. et al. Mortality due to haematological cancer in cities close to petroleum refineries in Spain. Environ Sci Pollut Res 20, 591–596 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-1152-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-1152-1

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