Cancer mortality in towns in the vicinity of installations for the production of cement, lime, plaster, and magnesium oxide

• We studied cancer mortality near cement, lime, plaster and magnesium oxide industry.
• Integrated nested Laplace approximations were used as a Bayesian inference tool.
• We found excess risk from all cancers, and especially in colon–rectum (both sexes).
• Risk was found, principally, in cement plants (men) and lime industries (women).
• Industrial registers, as PRTR, furnish useful information in epidemiologic studies.

Our objective was to investigate whether there might be excess cancer mortality in the vicinity of Spanish installations for the production of cement, lime, plaster, and magnesium oxide, according to different categories of industrial activity. An ecologic study was designed to examine municipal mortality due to 33 types of cancer (period 1997–2006) in Spain. Population exposure to pollution was estimated on the basis of distance from town to industrial facility. Using spatial Besag–York–Mollié regression models with integrated nested Laplace approximations for Bayesian inference, we assessed the relative risk of dying from cancer in a 5-km zone around installations, analyzed the effect of category of industrial activity according to the manufactured product, and conducted individual analyses within a 50-km radius of each installation. Excess all cancer mortality (relative risk, 95% credible interval) was detected in the vicinity of these installations as a whole (1.04, 1.01–1.07 in men; 1.03, 1.00–1.06 in women), and, principally, in the vicinity of cement installations (1.05, 1.01–1.09 in men). Special mention should be made of the results for tumors of colon–rectum in both sexes (1.07, 1.01–1.14 in men; 1.10, 1.03–1.16 in women), and pleura (1.71, 1.24–2.28), peritoneum (1.62, 1.15–2.20), gallbladder (1.21, 1.02–1.42), bladder (1.11, 1.03–1.20) and stomach (1.09, 1.00–1.18) in men in the vicinity of all such installations. Our results suggest an excess risk of dying from cancer, especially in colon–rectum, in towns near these industries.