Cancer mortality in US counties with hazardous-waste sites and ground-water pollution

Technical Report · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1989

OSTI ID:6603467

Griffith, J; Duncan, R C; Riggan, W R; Pellom, A C

Since the late 1950's more than 750 million tons of toxic chemical wastes have been discarded in an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 hazardous waste sites (HWS). The uncontrolled discarding of chemical wastes creates the potential for risks to human health. Utilizing the National Priorities Listing (NPL) of hazardous waste sites developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the study identified 593 waste sites in 339 U.S. counties in 49 states with analytical evidence of contaminated ground drinking water providing a sole source water supply to an estimated at risk population. For each of the 339 identified counties the authors extracted age-adjusted, site-specific cancer mortality rates for 12 major sites for the decade 1970-1979, for white males and females, from U.S. Cancer Mortality and Trends 1950-1979. Each county in the U.S. was also coded as to whether it had an excessively high number of deaths and the total number of non-HWS and HWS counties showing excess numbers of deaths were enumerated for each selected cancer. Significant associations (p < 0.002) between excess deaths and all HWS counties were shown for cancers of the lung, bladder, esophagus, stomach, large intestine, and rectum for white males; and for cancers of the lung, breast, bladder, stomach, large intestine, and rectum for white females when compared to all non-HWS counties.

• Research Organization: Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC (USA). Health Effects Research Lab.
• OSTI ID: 6603467
• Report Number(s): PB-90-245952/XAB; EPA--600/J-89/399
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540320 -- Environment
Aquatic-- Chemicals Monitoring &amp; Transport-- (1990-)
560300* -- Chemicals Metabolism &amp; Toxicology
63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
ANIMALS
CARCINOGENESIS
CHEMICAL WASTES
CONTAMINATION
DISEASES
DRINKING WATER
EPIDEMIOLOGY
GROUND WATER
HAZARDS
HEALTH HAZARDS
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
MAMMALS
MAN
MORTALITY
NEOPLASMS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PATHOGENESIS
POLLUTION
PRIMATES
RISK ASSESSMENT
VERTEBRATES
WASTES
WATER
WATER POLLUTION
XENOBIOTICS