A recent disease forecasting study — which analysed data from the Global Cancer Observatory (GCO) — has indicated a rise in cancers linked to lifestyle and metabolic factors and a decline in infection-related and tobacco-related cancers.
The study that projected the future burden of 23 major cancer types up to the year 2030 has been published in the BMJ Open this week.
Future burden
Aimed at projecting the future burden of cancer mortality in India by forecasting age-standardised mortality rates (ASMR) for 23 major cancer types to the year 2030, the study found an ongoing epidemiological transition that is, a clear shift towards cancers associated with lifestyle and economic development.
The ASMR is a way to fairly compare death rates between populations that have different age structures. The authors used an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model to forecast ASMR for 23 major cancer types until 2030, using aggregated, national-level cancer mortality data for the Indian population from 2000 to 2019.
