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Background The thyroid cancer (TC) incidence in China has increased dramatically during the last three decades. Typical in this respect is the case of Hangzhou city (China), where 7147 new TC cases were diagnosed during the period 2008–2012. Hence, the assessment of the TC incidence risk increase due to environmental exposure is an important public health matter. Methods Correlation analysis, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Poisson regression were first used to evaluate the statistical association between TC and key risk factors (industrial density and socioeconomic status). Then, the Bayesian maximum entropy (BME) theory and the integrative disease predictability (IDP) criterion were combined to quantitatively assess both the overall and the spatially distributed strength of the “exposure-disease” association. Results Overall, higher socioeconomic status was positively correlated with higher TC risk (Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.687, P < 0.01). Compared to people of low socioeconomic status, people of median and high socioeconomic status showed higher TC risk: the Relative Risk (RR) and associated 95% confidence interval (CI) were found to be, respectively, RR = 2.29 with 95% CI = 1.99 to 2.63, and RR = 3.67 with 95% CI = 3.22 to 4.19. The “industrial density-TC incidence” correlation, however, was non-significant. Spatially, the “socioeconomic status-TC” association measured by the corresponding IDP coefficient was significant throughout the study area: the mean IDP value was − 0.12 and the spatial IDP values were consistently negative at the township level. It was found that stronger associations were distributed among residents mainly on a stripe of land from northeast to southwest (consisting mainly of sub-district areas). The “industrial density-TC” association measured by its IDP coefficient was spatially non-consistent. Conclusions Socioeconomic status is an important indicator of TC risk factor in Hangzhou (China) whose effect varies across space. Hence, socioeconomic status shows the highest TC risk effect in sub-district areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catering oil fumes are a major hazard to human health. In particular, the typical Chinese cooking style is characterised by a high temperature frying process that produces high levels of cooking oil fumes. However, limited data relating to this sector mean that national emission inventory data specific to the catering service industry do not exist. To address above deficiency and thus to establish the inventory of a city, or a province, or even a country, a door-to-door survey campaign was launched in the Chinese cities of Heze and Linfen to determine the structure of local catering industries. Data revealed that the number of catering businesses per 104 people was 17 ± 4. Of these, 3.0 ± 1.4, 15.0 ± 1.4, and 82.0 ± 0.0% were classified as large, medium, and small enterprises, respectively. Furthermore, the installation rates of fume purifiers were 74 ± 13, 66 ± 9, and 51 ± 14% for large, medium, and small enterprises, respectively, with net removal efficiencies of 63 ± 11, 50 ± 7, and 31 ± 8%, respectively. This information was extrapolated across all provincial regions of China to construct a provincial and national emission inventory. In 2017, China's national catering industry released approximately 34 kt of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), 38 kt of particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 μm (PM 2.5), 48 kt of particulate matter with a diameter less than 10 μm (PM 10), 1 kt of black carbon (BC), and 27 kt of organic carbon (OC). A significant correlation was observed between vegetable oil consumption and emissions (e.g., for VOCs, y = 14.94 x + 76.50, R2 = 0.87, where y is VOCs emissions and x is vegetable oil consumption), indirectly corroborating the rationality of the inventory. Moreover, this correlation provides the potential for a dynamic inventory based on vegetable oil consumption. Future studies are proposed to address more influential factors to improve the reliability of the national inventory and refer to big data, rather than door-to-door investigation, to identify the amount of catering service businesses in a region. Unlabelled Image • Intensive surveys on catering industry information performed in two Chinese cities • Survey data help establish a national emission inventory of catering industry. • A significant correlation observed between vegetable oil consumption and emissions. • This correlation indirectly verifies by the rationality of the inventory. • This relation useful for dynamically updating emission inventory of catering sector [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]