Authors: Viktor Semenov, Liliia Kriachkova, Dnipro State Medical University, Ukraine.
Military actions impose serious short and long-term environmental impact on the territories where they unfold. War influences the environment in multiple direct and indirect ways, leading to contamination of air, water and soil. In the frame of the 4P-CAN project the team of researchers from Montenegro, North Macedonia and Ukraine investigated the link between military-generated pollution and cancer epidemiology. The study included literature search, analysis of air pollution and cancer epidemiology data with attention to Yugoslavian and Russian-Ukrainian wars.
The results of the research highlight the complex influence of war on air pollution and cancer epidemiology in the involved countries. Twenty-five years after the Yugoslavian wars, discussions regarding the long-term impact of war pollution on public health are ongoing. Although it is not possible to draw definitive conclusions about the effect of wars on air pollution and population health (including cancer epidemiology), signs of negative short- and mid-term consequences of war-generated pollution on cancer epidemiology were observed. The signs of short-term negative impact of war on air pollution were identified – a 20% increase in dust pollution in the days of attacks from air can be expected. There was a 1.4 years reduction in median survival of patients diagnosed with cancer during the full-scale Russian military invasion to Ukraine, when compared to pre-invasion times.
The question of military-generated pollution effect on cancer incidence is multifactorial and requires further investigation. There is the need for longitudinal cohort studies of the involved populations during and immediately after the conflict. The impact of air pollution as an environmental risk factor intensified by war cannot be viewed in isolation from the influence of other ecological, behavioural, and socio-economic determinants. This research made possible identifying several objectives, some of which will be accomplished in the frame of the 4P-CAN project: development of ecological monitoring programs, development of policy recommendations for tackling war implications on cancer, implementation of cancer prevention campaigns.
This research has been further discussed in the latest episode of the 4P-CAN Project Podcast, where we had the pleasure of having Viktor Semenov share some insights and key findings.
