A comparison of two techniques for calculating groundwater arsenic-related lung, bladder and liver cancer disease burden using data from Chakdha block, West Bengal

Calculation of excess disease burden for As exposed populations is becoming increasingly important to enable quantitative estimation of the impacts of various As mitigation options. There are several methods by which such calculations may be carried out. In this study, two methods, recently applied to estimating groundwater As-related health risks in southern Asia, to estimate disease burden arising from lung, bladder and liver cancer from As exposure for an As-effected area of West Bengal have been compared. Both utilized calculated distributions of exposure of the studied population to As from groundwater. Method (I) then entailed calculating disease burden by combining published background rates for death and disability adjusted life years (DALYs) and standard mortality ratios (SMRs) for excess health impacts related to As exposure, whilst for Method (II), disease burden from As exposure was estimated using the basic DALY formula, combined with incidence rates based on the NRC multistage Weibull model. Dose–response data for both methods were based on studies in Taiwan.