The use of geothermal energy for heating houses, swimming pools and industry in Iceland has clearly improved living conditions in the last decades. Results from Aðalbjörg Kristbjörnsdóttir’s, MA in Public Health Sciences and Vilhjálmur Rafnsson’s, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, recently published study, indicate nevertheless that living in geothermal areas can prove detrimental to human health. “Foreign research has shown that people who live in geothermal areas are more prone to cancer than others, however, results vary concerning which type of cancer. It is therefore important to study the lay of the land in Iceland,” explains Rafnsson.
Kristbjörnsdóttir completed her MA degree in Public Health Sciences in spring 2012 and in her thesis she studied whether inhabitants in high temperature geothermal areas, exposed to geothermal emissions and water containing hydrogen sulphide and radon, are more prone to cancer than other groups. “I compared inhabitants from the registry of 1981 in high temperature geothermal areas with inhabitants in low-temperature geothermal areas as well as mixed areas. Information on almost 75 thousand individuals is examined in the study,” explains Kristbjörnsdóttir. The three groups were monitored in the Cancer registry from 1981 to 2010 and it was examined how many in each group had been diagnosed with cancer during this period.
“The study showed increased risk of breast-, pancreatic- and lymphoid cancer, as well as basal cell carcinoma of the skin among the population in the high-temperature geothermal area; there are, furthermore, indications of increased risk of other radiation-sensitive cancers. This suggests that people living in high-temperature geothermal areas are more prone to radiation-sensitive cancers than others,” adds Kristbjörnsdóttir. She emphasizes that social status has been taken into account and data on reproductive factors and smoking habits; and these do not seem to explain the increased risk of cancers. Kristbjörnsdóttir and Rafnsson point out that further and more detailed information on how people are exposed to emissions connected to high-temperature geothermal areas in order to draw conclusions from the results and they are planning further research, depending on continued funding.
The study on high-temperature geothermal area and cancer was supported by the University of Iceland Research Fund in 2012.
