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Environmental Determinants of the Social Gradient in Cancer Incidence

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Social Environment and Cancer in Europe

Abstract

Environmental determinants encompass the features of both physical and socioeconomic environments where people live, work and recreate. Growing evidence suggests that the socioeconomic gradient in cancer incidence might be in part attributed to environmental factors, particularly air pollution, radon, water contamination and, to a lesser degree, neighbourhood socioeconomic deprivation, access to green space and noise exposure. Two interrelated mechanisms that might explain the relationship between environmental determinants and the social gradient in cancer risk are: environmental factors linked to cancer are unevenly distributed across socioeconomic groups (differential exposure) and/or the effect of environmental factors causing cancer differs across socioeconomic groups (differential susceptibility). Investigations on the connections between cancer risk and environmental dominants might be affected by a particular set of bias and errors related to the definition of residential neighbourhoods and the mismatch between direct and indirect measures of exposure. While the evidence is becoming increasingly robust, this is a relatively new research field with substantial room for conceptual and methodological improvement. Such research will serve not only to disentangle epidemiological models of causation but may also point to unique environmental and territorial planning interventions towards the reduction of cancer risk at a population level.

Funding

Ana Isabel Ribeiro was funded by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), through the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Programme, and by national funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the project PTDC/GES-AMB/30193/2017 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030193) and the Research Unit of Epidemiology – Institute of Public Health of the University of Porto (EPIUnit) (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006862; Ref. UID/DTP/04750/2019). Ana Isabel Ribeiro was also supported by National Funds through FCT, under the programme of ‘Stimulus of Scientific Employment – Individual Support’ within the contract CEECIND/02386/2018.

The work of the UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit is funded by Public Health England as part of the MRC Centre for Environment and Health, funded also by the UK Medical Research Council (MR/L01341X/1).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Any vegetated space can be described as green space, ranging in size and quality from small areas included around housing complexes and around roads, to parks, cemeteries, forests and the open countryside.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. EPIUnit – Instituto de Saúde Pública, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Ana Isabel Ribeiro

  2. Departamento de Ciências da Saúde Pública e Forenses e Educação Médica, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Ana Isabel Ribeiro

  3. UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit, MRC Centre for Environment and Health, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Daniela Fecht

Authors
  1. Ana Isabel Ribeiro
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  2. Daniela Fecht
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Correspondence to Ana Isabel Ribeiro .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. U1086 INSERM, University Caen-Normandy, University Hospital Center, Caen, France

    Guy Launoy

  2. Epidemiology and Cancer Registry, Institute of Oncology, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Vesna Zadnik

  3. Cancer Survival Group, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK

    Michel P. Coleman

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Ribeiro, A.I., Fecht, D. (2021). Environmental Determinants of the Social Gradient in Cancer Incidence. In: Launoy, G., Zadnik, V., Coleman, M.P. (eds) Social Environment and Cancer in Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69329-9_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69329-9_15

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