Data

Cancer registration in Finland started in 1953, and cancer incidence rates by municipality can be tabulated from the beginning of the registration period (see the homepage of Finnish Cancer Registry). Maps in the present animations are based on the municipality-specific data from the Finnish Cancer Registry over the period 1953-2008. Cancer incidence rates were calculated for each municipality for 8-year periods 1953-1960, 1957-1964, …, 2001-2008, adjusted for age using the World Standard Population. For a given municipality, the observations were assigned to its geographical central point. The geographical data used in the maps include coordinates of national borders, major lakes and waterways.