Using childhood cancer incidence trends over time as a surveillance tool in evaluating the health outcome impact of unconventional shale gas development in PA

Abstract

Background/Objective: Unconventional natural gas shale drilling (UNGD) development has grown dramatically since 2007, peaking in 2011 thus raising concerns about the health impact on children. Although latency for cancer can be 50 years in adults, some childhood cancers may be sensitive to both in utero and early perinatal exposures. We examined incidence of childhood cancer in fracking and non-fracking counties in Pennsylvania as a possible surveillance tool for environmental exposures from fracking. Method: Three cancer types (childhood Leukemia, Lymphoma and CNS tumor) known to be associated with environmental risk factors were examined. Average age-adjusted incidence rates were calculated for each cancer type in 4 year intervals from 1985-2013 in PA and were compared among exposed and unexposed counties. Correlation matrix and stepwise multivariate regression were used to examine other concomitant risk factors (smoking rate and sociodemographic characteristics by county) that may affect childhood cancer rates along with a measure of fracking density on county level. Results: The total number of childhood cancer cases (ag