The purpose of the study was to summarize the literature about geographic information systems (GIS) and its applications in childhood cancer research. The main focus was to examine how GIS has been contributing to the research of childhood leukemia and its etiology. Since this is one of the diseases that can be connected to a public health issue, a thorough exploration of different areas outside the childhood cancer area had to be considered. Areas such as epidemiology and environmental health were two of the most relevant sources of literature. The etiology behind childhood leukemia has been studied for several decades, but the risk factors that cause this disease still remain largely unknown, and the results have been inconsistent. Since the 1990's, one of the methods to identify potential spatial clusters of childhood leukemia has been the use of GIS. This software has the ability to layer multiple risk factors in relation to the diagnosed children and thereafter visualize potential clusters on a map. The evaluation of the literature resulted in five topics which included most of the studies that has utilized GIS in their research of childhood leukemia. These five topics with its connected risk factors were: electromagnetic fields, ionizing radiation, air pollution, agricultural pesticides and hazardous waste sites. Even though few of the studies showed statistic significant clusters when connecting a potential risk factor with childhood leukemia, a majority of them didn't present any evidence about a causal relationship, which indicates a need of further research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-95990 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Bergström, Stina |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Kulturgeografi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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