Abstract
Poor air quality and environmental pollution remain one of the main etiological factors leading to cancers and cancer-related deaths worldwide. As a result of human activities and changes in the climate, deleterious airborne chemicals can be dispersed not only in the environment but also released in occupational and industrial areas. Air pollutants and cancer links are now established through various oxidative stress-related mechanisms and related Deoxyribonucleic acid damages. As air pollution dramatically approaches an upward trend in the Sub-Saharan countries, interestingly we found cancer rates and burden also rise here between 1.5 and 4-fold higher than in developed countries. The Sub-Saharan region is predicted to have over 85% rise in cancer burden by 2030, with high rates of especially breast, prostate, and cervical cancer. Approaches to monitoring, minimizing, and creating awareness of the trends in some specific pollutants in sub-Saharan Africa will help ameliorate cancer prevalence and support the reduction of air pollution level safe margin, thereby relieving the burden from all cancer types. This study examines the trends and correlations of carbon dioxide emissions, greenhouse effect in the changing climate, and PM2.5 levels in some highly populated Sub-Saharan countries recently noticed to have higher cancer burden. Utilization of the findings from the study support public health efforts to improve the reduction of all cancer types in the African ancestry especially in the Sub-Saharan region having the poorest outcome and the shortest survival rates from cancer globally.
Presenters
Omolola OkunromadeStudent, DrPH Student, Georgia Southern University, Georgia, United States Atin Adhikari
Associate Professor, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Georgia, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2022 Special Focus - Responding to Climate Change as Emergency: Governing the Climate Emergency
KEYWORDS
Air quality, Cancer, Cancer prevalence, Emissions, Cancer Burden, PM2.5, CO2
