Early onset blood cancer risks associated with living near Superfund sites
Abstract
Residential environmental chemical exposures have been associated with elevated cancer risks. This study examined the risk associated with living near Superfund sites for leukemia and lymphoma—two “indicator” cancers with high sensitivity to environmental chemical exposures. Analyzing 127 locations with available data (55 New York City neighborhoods and 72 counties, totaling 39.25% of the US population; 23 with large Superfund sites), the study found modestly higher area-level incidence rates of leukemia and lymphoma in locations classified as affected by Superfund sites. For lymphoma, estimated incidence rate ratio was 1.07 (95% CI = 1.02 to 1.11) among individuals aged 20-49 years and 1.05 (95% CI = 1.02 to 1.09) among individuals aged 50-64 years, corresponding to a 1.19 and 1.14 area-level relative risk respectively for the two groups living within 2 km (New York City) or 5 km (elsewhere) of a Superfund site. As many Superfund sites are located around population centers, these findings highlight the need for mitigating such exposures and cancer risks.
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BibTeX
@article{yuan2026early,
title = {{Early onset blood cancer risks associated with living near Superfund sites}},
author = {Haokun Yuan and Mary Beth Terry and Wan Yang},
journal = {JNCI Cancer Spectrum},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1093/jncics/pkag099},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/jncics/pkag099},
note = {CC BY-NC 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Early onset blood cancer risks associated with living near Superfund sites
AU - Haokun Yuan
AU - Mary Beth Terry
AU - Wan Yang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/26
JO - JNCI Cancer Spectrum
DO - 10.1093/jncics/pkag099
UR - https://doi.org/10.1093/jncics/pkag099
AB - Residential environmental chemical exposures have been associated with elevated cancer risks. This study examined the risk associated with living near Superfund sites for leukemia and lymphoma—two “indicator” cancers with high sensitivity to environmental chemical exposures. Analyzing 127 locations with available data (55 New York City neighborhoods and 72 counties, totaling 39.25% of the US population; 23 with large Superfund sites), the study found modestly higher area-level incidence rates of leukemia and lymphoma in locations classified as affected by Superfund sites. For lymphoma, estimated incidence rate ratio was 1.07 (95% CI = 1.02 to 1.11) among individuals aged 20-49 years and 1.05 (95% CI = 1.02 to 1.09) among individuals aged 50-64 years, corresponding to a 1.19 and 1.14 area-level relative risk respectively for the two groups living within 2 km (New York City) or 5 km (elsewhere) of a Superfund site. As many Superfund sites are located around population centers, these findings highlight the need for mitigating such exposures and cancer risks.
SN - 2515-5091
ER -