The trends of mortality and years of life lost of cancers in urban and rural areas in China, 1990‐2017

BACKGROUND: With the rapid development of the socioeconomic status, the mortality of several cancers has been changed in China during the past 30 years. We aimed to estimate the trends of mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) of various cancers in urban and rural areas of China from 1990 to 2017. METHODS: The mortality data were collected from Chinese yearbooks and the age structure of population from the Chinese sixth population census were used as reference to calculate age‐standardized mortality rates (ASMRs) and YLLs rates. Joinpoint regression analysis was implemented to calculate the annual percent change (APC) of mortality rates and YLL rates for cancers. YLLs owing to premature death were calculated as age‐specific cancer deaths multiplied by the reference life expectancy at birth of 80 years for male and 82.5 years for female. RESULTS: The ASMRs of all cancers showed significant decreasing trends for urban residents from 1990 to 2017, such downward trend without significance was also observed among rural residents. Interestingly, ASMRs of lung cancer and breast cancer have raised continuously in rural areas since 1990. The age‐standardized YYL rates for urban and rural residents decreased with 1.02% and 0.85% per year, respectively. YLLs in rural areas were higher than those in urban areas, whereas YLLs of urban outstripped those of rural finally with the increasing in YLLs of urban areas (216.71% for men and 207.87% for women). CONCLUSION: The ASMRs and YLL rates of all cancers have declined in urban and rural areas from 1990 to 2017. YLLs increased in urban areas and remained higher level in rural areas after 2014 year. Preventive measures should be strengthened to against cancer, especially for lung cancer.