BackgroundOver the past decade, lung cancers have exhibited a disproportionately high mortality and increasing mortality trend in Thailand, especially in the northern region, and prevention strategies have consequently become more important in this region. Spatial analysis studies may be helpful in guiding any strategy put in place to respond to the risk of lung cancer mortality in specific areas. The aim of our study was to identify risk patterns for lung cancer mortality within the northern region of Thailand.MethodsIn the spatial analysis, the relative risk (RR) was used as a measure of the risk of lung cancer mortality in 81 districts of northern Thailand between 2008 and 2017. The RR was estimated according to the Besag-York-Mollié autoregressive spatial model performed using the OpenBUGS routine in the R statistical software package. We presented the overall and gender specific lung cancer mortality risk patterns of the region using the Quantum Geographic Information System.ResultsThe overall risk of lung cancer mortality was the highest in the west of northern Thailand, especially in the Hang Dong, Doi Lo, and San Pa Tong districts. For both genders, the risk patterns of lung cancer mortality indicated a high risk in the west of northern Thailand, with females being at a higher risk than males.ConclusionsThere was distinct geographical variation in risk patterns of lung cancer mortality in Thailand. Differences could be related to differences in risk factors such as ground-based radon and air pollution. This study provides a starting point for estimating the spatial pattern of the risk of lung cancer mortality and for examining associations between geographic risk factors and lung mortality for further studies.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-018-6025-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The HN cancer incidence in Thailand is rising with mean annual age-standardized incidence rates (ASRs per 100,000) of 14.2 for males and 9.7 for females in 2007-2009 compared to 15.7 for males and 10.7 for females in -2012(Tangjaturonrasme et al., 2018. The incidence of tumors at certain sites has also been found