Air Quality and Cancer Prevalence Trends across the Sub-Saharan African Regions during 2005–2020

Abstract

Poor air quality and environmental pollution remain some of the main etiological factors leading to cancers and cancer-related deaths worldwide. As a result of human activities, deleterious airborne chemicals can be dispersed not only in the environment but also released in occupational environments and industrial areas. Air pollutants and cancer links are now established through various oxidative stress-related mechanisms and related DNA damages. Generally, ambient and indoor air pollutants have been understudied in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) compared to other regions in the world. Our study not only highlights the deleterious effects of air pollutants in these developing countries, but it has strived to examine the trends and correlations between cancers and some air pollutants—carbon dioxide, other greenhouse gases, PM2.5, and human development index—in some SSA countries, where recent cancer burdens were reported as high. Our results showed strikingly higher yearly trends of cancers and above-mentioned air pollutant levels in some sub-Saharan countries during 2005–2020. Relative risks (RR) of these air pollutants-related cancer case rates were, however, below, or slightly above 1.0, or not statistically significant possibly due to other responsible and confounding factors which were not considered in our analyses due to data unavailability. We recommend new approaches to monitoring, minimizing, and creating awareness of the trends of hazardous air pollutants in sub-Saharan Africa, which will help ameliorate cancer prevalence and support the reduction in air pollution levels within regulatory limits, thereby relieving the cumulative burdens of cancers. Utilization of the findings from the study will support large-scale public health and health policy efforts on cancer management through environmental stewardship in SSA countries having the poorest outcome and the shortest survival rates from cancers.

Clean energy consumption, sleep duration, and the association of cancer: findings from the China health and retirement longitudinal study

“…Previous studies have shown that the incidence of cancer and the level of air pollutants have increased significantly, including but not limited to lung cancer, breast cancer, etc. Adhikari A. and others found that in some sub-Saharan countries, the incidence of cancer and the level of air pollutants have increased significantly in the past 15 years ( 13 ). Cooking and indoor incineration have been identified as significant risk factors for lung cancer, especially among women ( 14 ).…”

Curcumin: Overview of Extraction Methods, Health Benefits, and Encapsulation and Delivery Using Microemulsions and Nanoemulsions

“…Cancer is the leading cause of mortality globally, with approximately 10 million deaths recorded in 2020 and an estimated 28.4 million new cases expected by 2040 [149]. The lack of physical activity, obesity, tobacco use, alcohol use [150,151], exposure to ultraviolet radiation [152], and exposure to an environment polluted with nitrogen dioxide [153], sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide [154,155], suspended particles [156], and persistent organic pollutants (POP) such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [157,158], all contribute to the development of various types of cancer, the most prevalent of which are breast cancer [159], colorectal cancer [36,160], lung cancer [154], prostate cancer, and gastric cancer [161].…”