Environmental exposomics and lung cancer risk assessment in the Philadelphia metropolitan area using ZIP code–level hazard indices

Abstract

To illustrate methods for assessing environmental exposures associated with lung cancer risk, we investigated anthropogenic based air pollutant data in a major metropolitan area using United States-Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) (1987–2017), and PM2.5 (1998–2016) and NO2 (1996–2012) concentrations from NASA satellite data. We studied chemicals reported according to the following five exposome features: (1) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) cancer grouping; (2) priority EPA polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs); (3) component of diesel exhaust; (4) status as a volatile organic compound (VOC); and (5) evidence of lung carcinogenesis. Published articles from PubChem were tallied for occurrences of 10 key characteristics of cancer-causing agents on those chemicals. Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) codes with higher exposures were identified in two ways: (1) combined mean exposure from all features, and (2) hazard index derived through a multi-step multi-criteria decision analysis (MMCDA) process. VOCs, IARC Group 1 carcinogens consisted 82.3% and 11.5% of the reported TRI emissions, respectively. ZIP codes along major highways tended to have greater exposure. The MMCDA approach yielded hazard indices based on imputed toxicity, occurrence, and persistence for risk assessment. Despite many studies describing environmental exposures and lung cancer risk, this study develops a method to integrate these exposures into population-based exposure estimates that could be incorporated into future lung cancer screening trials and benefit public health surveillance of lung cancer incidence. Our methodology may be applied to probe other hazardous exposures for other cancers.

Association of multi-criteria derived air toxics hazard score with lung cancer incidence in a major metropolitan area

“…For each ZIP code, we calculate the air toxics hazard score using the MMCDA approach as described previously in McKeon et al based on TRI data between 1987 and 2007 ( 15 ). We choose 1987 because it is the first year for which TRI data became available, and the year 2007 is chosen to maintain the temporal order of the exposures and the years for which the lung cancer cases were included ( 29 ).…”

“…MCDA has been implemented in many application areas and is widely used by US EPA for different investigations including exposure research ( 32–34 ) and risk assessment ( 35 , 36 ). In our previous work ( 15 ), we developed the air toxics hazard score by modifying the MCDA that was originally applied to hydraulic fracturing fluids ( 37 , 38 ) to consider the domains of toxicity, persistence, and release amounts in which the release amounts was used as a weighting domain. TRI records the amounts of chemical emissions (in pounds) released into the air (both fugitive and stack emissions) by industrial and federal facilities that manufacture, process, or use toxic chemicals each year with one data entry per emission per chemical per facility.…”

“…Inspiring by the exposome concept proposed by Christopher Wild in 2005 ( 14 ), which considers all exposures to an individual in his or her lifetime and relates them to health outcomes, McKeon et al proposed a methodology to construct a hazard index to measure the combined effects of chemical compounds that may lead to higher lung cancer incidence ( 15 ). Using a Multi-Step Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MMCDA) risk assessment framework, the air toxics hazard index is designed to summarize the relative impact of many chemicals in a particular study area using a point system.…”

The Geographic Context of Racial Disparities in Aggressive Endometrial Cancer Subtypes: Integrating Social and Environmental Aspects to Discern Biological Outcomes

“…Each record lists the amounts of all reportable chemicals at a geographic location, including the x,y coordinate and all associated variables (For a complete list of variables reported in the TRI, see: , accessed on 19 January 2022), and can be mapped using GIS. The TRI has been widely used in cancer literature to investigate the role of environmental hazards on disease [ 26 , 27 , 28 ]. While the TRI can be used to investigate chemical exposure and disease outcome, drawing from environmental justice and environmental racism research, it can also be used as a marker of racially patterned aspects of neighborhood deprivation [ 29 ].…”

VOCs Fugitive Emission Characteristics and Health Risk Assessment from Typical Plywood Industry in the Yangtze River Delta Region, China

“…As important precursors of PM 2.5 and O 3 , ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) play a critical role in the formation of secondary air pollutants [3,4]. In addition, some studies have shown that many VOC species are hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) [5,6], such as formaldehyde, benzene, chloroform, etc., which are classified as carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) [7,8].…”