Rural people more likely to die from colon cancer

Rural people with colon cancer are more likely to be diagnosed late and receive inferior treatment than their urban counterparts, according to a new University of Minnesota study. Rural colon cancer sufferers are also more likely to die from the disease. This is the first study of its kind to show that outcomes in colon cancer are affected by where a person lives, Tiffany Chao reports for ABC News.

The study focussed on more than 100,000 patients diagnosed with colon cancer from 1996 to 2008, with rural people making up 15 percent of the total. Rural patients were 4 percent more likely to get a late diagnosis, had 17 percent lower odds of receiving chemotherapy and had an 18 percent lower chance of getting lymph nodes removed during cancer-removal surgery, indicating that their treatment was most likely inadequate. Overall, rural patients were 5 percent more likely to die from colon cancer. (Read more)

Tobacco use highest in rural areas; factors include companies' targeting of youth, Lung Assn. says

Tobacco use is higher among rural communities than in suburban and urban areas, and smokeless tobacco use is twice as common. According to the American Lung Association, rural youth are more likely to use tobacco and to start earlier than urban youth, perpetuating the cycle of tobacco addiction, death and disease.

In its latest health disparity report, “Cutting Tobacco’s Rural Roots: Tobacco Use in Rural Communities,” ALA says the increased tobacco use is associated with lower education levels and lower incomes, which are both common in rural areas where there may be fewer opportunities for educational and economic advancement.

The exposure to secondhand smoke is also likely to be higher, since rural communities are less likely to have smoke-free air laws in place, and that probably makes residents less likely to ask individuals not to smoke in their homes or other indoor places they control.

The report also pointed out that the tobacco industry "spends millions of dollars targeting rural youth," and "these young people are less likely to be exposed to tobacco counter-marketing campaigns. Rural tobacco users are also less likely to have access to tobacco-cessation programs and services to get the help they need to quit. Promotion of the availability of state counseling services by phone and online resources also lags in rural communities."

To read the full report, go here.

Three reports start to answer questions about surface mining's link to human health problems

Three new scientific reports have begun to answer questions about how mountaintop-removal coal mining could play a role in higher levels of illnesses among residents in the Appalachian coalfields. Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette notes that "researchers have found higher levels of certain types and sizes of pollution particles in communities near mountaintop removal sites, and also believe they've identified one potential mechanism for that pollution impacting public health.(Photo by Vivian Stockman, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition)

The findings, presented at recent academic conferences and in the peer-reviewed publication pipeline, add to the results of nearly two dozen West Virginia University papers that found higher levels of health problems -- including cancer and birth defects -- among residents living in the shadow of large-scale surface coal mining." The studies showed only correlations, not causations, so further research was needed.

"It moves beyond the epidemiological data to examine what the real environmental conditions are in the communities where people live near mountaintop removal operations," said WVU researcher Michael Hendryx, who co-authored the previous papers and the new reports. Ward notes that environmental groups have not funded Hendryx, "but those groups have seized on his findings to argue that mountaintop removal isn't just an issue about mining's effects on salamanders, mayflies or isolated mountain streams. Coal lobbyists have disputed the study findings and industry lawyers have so far kept the science out of courtroom battles over new mining permits." (For more reporter's notes and commentary on this item, see Ward's blog, Coal Tattoo, go here.

Manuel Quinones of Energy & Environment News writes about the debate between Hendryx and Jonathan Borak, a clinical professor of epidemiology and public health and medicine at Yale University, who rebutted Hendryx's mortality study with an article in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Expanding research paid for by the National Mining Association, he said Hendryx put too much weight on coal when other factors could be to blame. "This month, Hendryx and co-author Melissa Ahern, an associate professor in Washington State University's College of Pharmacotherapy, published a letter to the editor in the journal responding to Borak," Quinones reports. "Borak also penned a response to the response. . . . Amid the disagreements, a collection of several university scholars, including some from West Virginia University, have joined forces to increase scientific understanding of the coal industry and its effects. Even though the consortium receives industry funding, companies have no say in the research." (Read more; subscription may be required)