Use of GIS in analyzing environmental cancer risks as a*

本提案的总体目标是研究癌症风险与潜在环境暴露（特别是砷暴露）之间关系的地理差异，然后确定地理尺度变化时这种关系的同质性。地理信息系统（GIS）的使用使得将不同地理级别的描述性属性信息的多个来源与健康结果数据联系起来更加可行。地理信息系统的使用允许维护和分析数据元素之间的空间关系。砷暴露可能是膀胱癌、肺癌、肾癌和皮肤癌发生的一个原因。此外，砷在不同的地理位置是不同的。亚利桑那州存在几个地理上划分的数据集，可以对砷接触与癌症发生之间的关系进行流行病学探索。地理编码的癌症发病率和死亡率数据可从亚利桑那州癌症登记处获得，包括膀胱癌、肾癌和肺癌。皮肤癌数据来自一项已完成的基于人群的病例对照研究。砷浓度可从亚利桑那州进行的多媒体、多途径调查中获得。这项拟议研究的具体目的是：1)评估空间尺度，确定癌症死亡率地图集使用的尺度与可能在州内更有用的尺度之间的关系；2)评估不同地理尺度下各种癌症与砷暴露之间的关系。该提案提出了一个有凝聚力的研究团队，包括来自亚利桑那大学各学院和州卫生机构的教职员工，并将利用各个州机构收集的档案数据和完成的皮肤癌和环境暴露的流行病学研究。

The overall goals of this proposal are to examine geographical variation in the association between cancer risk and potential environmental exposures, in particular arsenic exposure, and to then determine the homogeneity of the associations as the geographical scale changes. Uses of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have made it more feasible to link multiple sources of descriptive attribute information for various geographic levels with health outcome data. The use of GIS allows the spatial relationships between the data elements to maintained and analyzed. Arsenic exposure may be a causal agent in the development of bladder, lung, kidney, and skin cancers. Furthermore, arsenic is known to vary across geographical locations. Several geographically delineated data sets exist in the State of Arizona that allow for epidemiological exploration of the relationship between arsenic exposure and cancer occurrence. Geocoded cancer incidence and mortality data are available from the Arizona Cancer Registry for bladder, kidney, and lung cancer. Skin cancer data are available from a completed population-based case control study. Arsenic concentrations are available from a multimedia, multipathway survey conducted in Arizona. The specific aims for this proposed research are 1) to evaluate spatial scales and determine relationships between the scale used by the Atlas of Cancer Mortality and scales potentially more useful within the state and 2) to evaluate the relationships between the various cancers and arsenic exposure for the various geographical scales. This proposal presents a cohesive research team that encompasses faculty and staff from various colleges within the University of Arizona and state health agencies and will utilize archival data collected by various state agencies and completed epidemiological studies of skin cancer and environmental exposures.