An age-period-cohort analysis of female breast cancer mortality from 1990–2009 in China

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer—related death among women. In this paper, we studied the variations in the trends of Chinese female breast cancer mortality by age, period and cohort from 1990 to 2009. METHODS: The mortality data were collected from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. An age-period-cohort model and Intrinsic Estimator were used to estimate the age effect, period effect and cohort effect on the Chinese adult female breast cancer mortality risk. RESULTS: The age effect on Chinese female breast cancer mortality initially increased, but then declined, and showed a reversed “J” shape with age. The period effect of breast cancer mortality continued to rise with the time period and increased by 59 % from 1990–1994 to 2005–2009. The cohort effect showed that the mortality risk of Chinese females born after 1911 was on the decline and decreased by 2.2336 from 1911 to 1989. The change rate of the cohort effect on breast cancer mortality fluctuated regularly. Three accelerating decreases and three decelerating decreases were noted in the variation law of the change rate. CONCLUSION: The results of study show the increasing mortality trend of breast cancer in Chinese female from 1990 to 2009, and the breast cancer mortality risk decreased with birth cohort. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12939-015-0211-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.