ReviewCritical reviews in toxicology2012
Cancer clusters in the USA: what do the last twenty years of state and federal investigations tell us?
Review in Critical reviews in toxicology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed.
- Spatial analysis of residential location at birth, PFAS in public water, and childhood cancers in Southern California (2000-2019).Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2026Article
- Observational
- The evolution of S-nitrosylation detection methodology and the role of protein S-nitrosylation in various cancers.Cancer cell international · 2024Review
- Capturing emergency dispatch address points as geocoding candidates to quantify delimited confidence in residential geolocation.International journal of health geographics · 2023Article
- Changes in spatial clusters of cancer incidence and mortality over 15 years in South Korea: Implication to cancer control.Cancer medicine · 2023Article
- Investigating reports of cancer clusters in Canada: a qualitative study of public health communication practices and investigation procedures.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2022Article
- Mapping the Way to Good Health: The Interdisciplinary Challenges of Geographers in Medical Research.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Cancer and the Environment projects with four First Nations organizations: working together to address concerns about carcinogens in the environment.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2022Article
- A causal inference framework for cancer cluster investigations using publicly available data.Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, (Statistics in Society) · 2020Article
- Spatial-Temporal Cluster Analysis of Childhood Cancer in California.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2020Article
- Protecting Children from Toxic Waste: Data-Usability Evaluation Can Deter Flawed Cleanup.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Article
- Residential cancer cluster investigation nearby a Superfund Study Area with trichloroethylene contamination.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2016Article
- Evolution of research in health geographics through the International Journal of Health Geographics (2002-2015).International journal of health geographics · 2016Article
- Two Suspected Worksite or Occupational Cancer Clusters Investigated Using the Cancer Data Registry and Multiple Primary Standardized Incidence Ratios in SEER *Stat-Idaho, 2013-2014.Journal of registry management · 2016Article
- Racial disparities of pancreatic cancer in Georgia: a county-wide comparison of incidence and mortality across the state, 2000-2011.Cancer medicine · 2016Article
- Causes of genome instability: the effect of low dose chemical exposures in modern society.Carcinogenesis · 2015Review
- Inflammatory breast cancer clusters: A hypothesis.World journal of clinical oncology · 2014Review
- Stop and listen to the people: an enhanced approach to cancer cluster investigations.American journal of public health · 2014Article
- Evaluating geostatistical modeling of exceedance probability as the first step in disease cluster investigations: very low birth weights near toxic Texas sites.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2014Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCancer clusters garner considerable public and legislative attention, and there is often an expectation that cluster investigations in a community will reveal a causal link to an environmental exposure. At a 1989 national conference on disease clusters, it was reported that cluster studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s rarely, if ever, produced important findings. We seek to answer the question: Have cancer cluster investigations conducted by US health agencies in the past 20 years improved our understanding of cancer etiology, or informed cancer prevention and control?
methodsWe reviewed publicly available cancer cluster investigation reports since 1990, obtained from literature searches and by canvassing all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Investigations were categorized with respect to cancer type(s), hypothesized exposure, whether perceived clusters were confirmed (e.g. by elevated incidence), and conclusions about a link between cancer(s) of concern and hypothesized environmental exposure(s).
resultsWe reviewed 428 investigations evaluating 567 cancers of concern. An increase in incidence was confirmed for 72 (13%) cancer categories (including the category "all sites"). Three of those were linked (with variable degree of certainty) to hypothesized exposures, but only one investigation revealed a clear cause.
conclusionsIt is fair to state that extensive efforts to find causes of community cancer clusters have not been successful. There are fundamental shortcomings to our current methods of investigating community cancer clusters. We recommend a multidisciplinary national dialogue on creative, innovative approaches to understanding when and why cancer and other chronic diseases cluster in space and time.
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