Cancer Incidence by Country

I had a quick look but didn't find a reference to how much each country tests, what exactly they test for, and what constitutes a definition of "cancer" per-country (for example, do countries both classify and report non-malignant neoplasms the same way). Without this info I don't think it's possible to draw any conclusions, except between countries with (presumably) fairly similar reporting and testing regimes thanks to a long shared history, such as the UK and Australia.

Keep in mind this is the incidence of cancer diagnoses. The quality of healthcare, diagnosis standards, and amount of preemptive screening varies heavily between countries.

This seems to indicate that the USA has vastly more cancer diagnoses than European countries even after adjusting for age.

Is there already research that explains why? Is this a well known phenomenon?

It’s not the only variable but this seems closely correlated with wealth/development. Perhaps cancer is less commonly diagnosed in poorer countries, and perhaps also people in them are more likely to die of something else before cancer gets them.

As someone born and living in Poland, I'm not surprised by high cancer rates. But cancer is still peanuts in comparison to hypertension death rate.

"Polish diet" is basically growth hormone-boosted pork meat, potatoes and some beets or sauerkraut on the side, followed by sugar and flavoring diluted in saturated fat as a dessert. Sweets sold in our stores have different ingredients than the same brands sold in Germany, Austria or Sweden. We breathe coal smoke all winter (I literally moved to seaside for better air; ~35 AQI at the time of writing this) to heat ourselves and export electricity to Germany.

We eat shitton of salt because apart from coal mines, we also have salt mines and government propaganda is that MSG is unhealthy. You can see products marketed as "ZERO GLUTAMATES" on store shelves, and a quick look at nutrients table, shows tons of sodium. Most restaurants oversalt to get you to buy more drinks. To add, Polish people smoke cheap cigatrettes like chimneys. I remember ashtrays even on pharmacies' counters in the 80s - it was unthinkable to extinguish your lit tabacco when entering the pharmacy.

That said, we still have much lower (lower==better) Air Quality Index, usually tens to hundreds times lower than India, and Indian food isn't healthy, too. I'm not sure if the data coming from particular countries is reliable.

Source data comes from IHME, Global Burden of Disease (2024), "with major processing by Our World in Data".

The upstream source is here, though I'll note that the most recent report is for 2021, though published in 2024: <https://www.healthdata.org/research-analysis/gbd>

Direct PDF link: <https://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/GBD_2...> (PDF) (24pp.)

Global cancer trends: <https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare/cancer>

Lung, colorectal, stomach, and breast lead.

I’m certain most people will draw the wrong conclusions from this and use it as evidence of [insert trendy boogieman]. Eg. processed food! Microplastics! Smartphones! Etc!

But this says more about the economic status and healthcare systems of each of these countries than it does anything about actual human cancer rates in said countries.

For example, in the US, the forms of cancer with the highest growing incidence rates (on a population basis) are the hardest to detect and least deadly —- like thyroid cancer, melanoma, etc —- due to advancements in diagnostics. In the past (and in poorer countries today), these things still go unnoticed.

The numbers in Poland seem pretty out of place. Does anyone know why?

Why Poland is high?

Also I suspect most of the countries on the map with low rates are not low with cancer rates but worse public health system. So not very telling

North America have at least lowest mortality rate https://gco.iarc.who.int/today/en/dataviz/bars?types=0_1&mod...

The chart here indicates the US is practically the only country with high and still increasing rates.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-incidence?tab=char...

Is this controlling for the distribution of the population age?

You should probably computed the incidence, give a persons age in each country. Then, you can take any age distribution, re-weight the incidence in each country with that, and you will get an informative metric.

The source data site has tons of great visuals and analysis: https://www.healthdata.org/research-analysis/gbd

The link provided by OP lacks context IMO.

(Their data is from 2021)

It's strange to see US and Canada be so heavily skewed towards higher per capita rates.

Poland is an interesting case, why are they having much more cancer than the rest of Europe?

Fast foods and a laxed FDA. - US

Surprised Australia isn't much higher given the incidence of melanoma.

Seems like there's absolutely nothing UNIQUELY in common amongst countries with high incidence rates as compared to those with low incidence rates. AI agrees.

I see in Europe Poland is a massive outlier, even compared to much poorer per capita neighbours such as Ukraine or Belarus.

I wonder if (a) it's genuine, (b) if it, is it because some other crucial variables are different (society age, other causes if mortality etc) and finally (c) if it's not a statistical artifact, then why is there more cancer in Poland.

One reason that comes to mind is that Poland very much has a culture of going to see a doctor and getting examined for every little thing. UK for example has an ethos of "take some paracetamol and get on with it". But no idea if that's the actual cause.

It's curious to see how, in the face of a higher rate of cancer, many people think that more tests are done in the US and Canada. What about the causes of cancer? Diet, sedentary lifestyle, expensive health system...