Assessing and mapping spatial associations among oral cancer mortality rates, concentrations of heavy metals in soil, and land use types based on multiple scale data
Journal
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Journal Volume
11
Journal Issue
2
Pages
2148-2168
Date Issued
2014
Author(s)
Abstract
In this study, a deconvolution procedure was used to create a variogram of oral cancer (OC) rates. Based on the variogram, area-to-point (ATP) Poisson kriging and p-field simulation were used to downscale and simulate, respectively, the OC rate data for Taiwan from the district scale to a 1 km × 1 km grid scale. Local cluster analysis (LCA) of OC mortality rates was then performed to identify OC mortality rate hot spots based on the downscaled and the p-field-simulated OC mortality maps. The relationship between OC mortality and land use was studied by overlapping the maps of the downscaled OC mortality, the LCA results, and the land uses. One thousand simulations were performed to quantify local and spatial uncertainties in the LCA to identify OC mortality hot spots. The scatter plots and Spearman's rank correlation yielded the relationship between OC mortality and concentrations of the seven metals in the 1 km cell grid. The correlation analysis results for the 1 km scale revealed a weak correlation between OC mortality rate and concentrations of the seven studied heavy metals in soil. Accordingly, the heavy metal concentrations in soil are not major determinants of OC mortality rates at the 1 km scale at which soils were sampled. The LCA statistical results for local indicator of spatial association (LISA) revealed that the sites with high probability of high-high (high value surrounded by high values) OC mortality at the 1 km grid scale were clustered in southern, eastern, and mid-western Taiwan. The number of such sites was also significantly higher on agricultural land and in urban regions than on land with other uses. The proposed approach can be used to downscale and evaluate uncertainty in mortality data from a coarse scale to a fine scale at which useful additional information can be obtained for assessing and managing land use and risk. © 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Other Subjects
heavy metal; heavy metal; soil; soil pollutant; cancer; correlation; deconvolution; health risk; heavy metal; kriging; land use; mapping; mortality; risk assessment; soil pollution; spatial analysis; agricultural land; article; cancer mortality; cluster analysis; concentration (parameters); correlation analysis; correlation coefficient; disease association; geographic distribution; geographic mapping; human; land use; male; mouth cancer; quantitative analysis; Taiwan; uncertainty; urban area; chemistry; environmental exposure; epidemiology; mortality; Mouth Neoplasms; soil; soil pollutant; spatial analysis; toxicity; Taiwan; Environmental Exposure; Humans; Male; Metals, Heavy; Mouth Neoplasms; Soil; Soil Pollutants; Spatial Analysis; Taiwan
Type
journal article