Urbanisation and incidence of acute lymphocytic leukaemia among United States children aged 0-4 A S Adelman1, C C McLaughlin2, X-C Wu3, V W Chen3 and F D Groves4 1Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Epidemiology, Medical University of South Carolina, 135 Cannon Street, Charleston, SC 29425, USA 2New York State Cancer Registry, Corning Tower, Room 536, Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12237, USA 3Epidemiology Program, School of Public Health, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, 1600 Canal Street, Suite 800, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA 4Department of Epidemiology and Clinical Investigation Sciences, School of Public Health and Information Sciences, University of Louisville, 555 South Floyd Street, Room # 4053, Louisville, KY 40202, USA Correspondence to: AS Adelman, E-mail: adelmaas@musc.edu Acute lymphocytic leukaemia (ALL) incidence among children under 5 years of age was examined, utilising data from 24 United States cancer registries. County-based incidence rates among white children were compared across four levels of urbanisation: large and small metropolitan counties, and adjacent and nonadjacent rural counties. In metropolitan areas, the incidence of ALL was lower among blacks (rate ratio (RR)=0.38, confidence interval (CI)=0.33-0.44) and among Asians/Pacific Islanders (RR=0.78, CI=0.63-0.97) than among whites. Among white children, the incidence of ALL decreased across the four strata of urbanisation, from 67 to 62 to 65 to 54 cases per million person-years at-risk (two-sided trend P=0.009), such that rates were significantly lower in the most remote rural counties than in the most populous metropolitan counties (RR=0.80, 95% CI=0.70-0.91). British Journal of Cancer (2005) 92, 2084-2088. doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6602607 Published online 10 May 2005 Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.