Kidney Cancer Incidence and Occupation in Different Climate Zones in the United States

Abstract

Kidney cancer is the twelfth most common cancer type globally, accounting for about four percent of the newly diagnosed cases of cancer within the United States. This study aims at determining the associations between the incidence of kidney cancer and the potential heat stress related with working conditions in the US climate zones. These associations were analyzed for counties within US as they can be classified into predefined climate zones. Records on kidney cancer, climate zones and occupation were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program of the NCI, US Department of Energy and the US Census Bureau respectively. This study covers a timeframe of 20 years (i.e., 2000-2019) which was divided into two analytical periods (2000–2009 and 2010 – 2019) based on the comparison of available data. The age-adjusted kidney cancer incidence rates for the entire US were 19.20 and 21.60 per 100,000 for the 2000-2009 and 2010-2019 periods respectively. Humid climate zones that are warm, hot and very hot had incidence rates ranging between 19.52-22.19 and 22.99-27.33 per 100,000 for both analytical periods respectively. Incidence rates in the dry zones that were cool and cold ranged between 13.64-17.71 and 17.51-21.60, while those of the marine zones ranged between 13.64-20.59 and 17.50-21.60 for these periods respectively. These incidence rates would also be examined across different occupation clusters to be created using heat stress indicators of each occupation type.