Cancer rates rose for women in some countries where extreme heat is rising, study says
Ozone depletion can mean more exposure to UV radiation, researchers said. Higher temperatures can also lead to drought and wildfires, which can cause pollution.
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'This can increase exposures to a broad range of agents associated with cancer risk,' said Irina Stepanov, a public health professor and member of the University of Minnesota's Masonic Cancer Center.
It was important, the authors said, to focus on women, many of whom may not receive proper screening or treatment in that part of the world.
'Women in this region face cultural, legal, and economic barriers to screening and treatment while also being disproportionately exposed to environmental carcinogens,' said coauthor Wafa Abuelkheir Mataria, a senior research fellow at the American University in Cairo. 'Our findings underscore the need to integrate climate change adaptation strategies into national cancer control plans with a gender-sensitive lens.'
Examining rising temperatures and both cancer cases and cancer deaths between 1998 and 2019, the scientists found that cases increased from 173 to 280 per 100,000 people for every degree Celsius increase. Deaths rose from 171 to 332 per 100,000 for each degree. In both cases and mortality, ovarian cancer increased the most.
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'The most striking finding was the consistency of the correlation between temperature increases and cancer prevalence and mortality, not just regionally but also in several individual countries,' said Mataria. Cases and deaths both rose in Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Syria.
There could be factors compounded by heat at play, the authors wrote - including pollution. When it's hotter, harmful pollution can be worse.
'For some pollutants such as ozone, and in some cases PM2.5, air pollution would be worse - all else being equal - with hotter temperatures,' said Julian Marshall, a professor focused on air quality engineering and public health at the University of Washington. When it's hotter, chemical reactions happen more quickly; it's why we store food in refrigerators to keep it fresh longer.
'Temperature rise likely acts through multiple pathways,' said the paper's coauthor, Sungsoo Chun, a professor at the American University in Cairo. 'It increases exposure to known carcinogens, disrupts healthcare delivery, and may even influence biological processes at the cellular level. Together, these mechanisms could elevate cancer risk over time.'
In some of the countries examined, where the authors acknowledge healthcare for women is harder to access, it also may be hard to find accurate data. The researchers used a dataset from the University of Washington's Institute For Health Metrics and Evaluation that adjusts for known underreporting. They also incorporated GDP per capita to control for wealth disparities that could mean less access to health care.
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'Still, we acknowledge that other factors including differences in screening availability could influence prevalence data,' Mataria said. The authors noted that increased screening, however, typically means increased cases, but decreased deaths because catching more cases would lead to more treatment. That's why it's significant that both cases and deaths went up, they said.
In places where it's getting hotter because of climate change, Stepanov said, the exposures to high risk chemicals may also be increasing. 'So, controlling for these factors would be very important in order to disentangle the specific effect of the temperature.'
She added that despite the limitations, 'this study brings attention to an important issue of the potential links between rising temperatures and cancer risks.'
The authors said they hope their initial findings will raise awareness and encourage nations to factor women into their climate and health policies.
'We hope this study prompts governments, researchers, and civil society to treat climate change not only as an environmental issue, but also as a women's health equity issue,' Mataria said.
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