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Pleural cancer mortality is an acknowledged indicator of exposure to asbestos and mesothelioma mortality but in 15%-20% of cases no exposure can be recalled. In the past, asbestos was used in many industries and it is still found in many installations. Our objective was to ascertain whether there might be excess pleural cancer mortality among populations residing in the vicinity of Spanish industrial installations that are governed by the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive and the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register Regulation and report their emissions to air. An ecological study was designed to examine pleural cancer mortality at a municipal level (8098 Spanish towns) over the period 1997-2006, during which 2146 deaths were registered. We conducted an exploratory "near vs. far" analysis to estimate the relative risks (RRs) of towns situated at a distance of

OBJECTIVES: To study the geographical pattern of mortality caused by haematological tumours in Spain at the municipal level using three Bayesian models and to compare their goodness of fit. METHODS: The fitted Bayesian hierarchical models were: (1) the Besag York and Molliè (BYM) model; (2) a model based on zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) distribution, which allowed a large number of event-free areas; and (3) a mixture of distributions that enabled discontinuities (jumps in the pattern) to be modelled. The three models allow smoothed relative risk maps to be obtained for the all countries. The goodness of fit was evaluated using the deviance information criteria. RESULTS: The three models yielded similar results. The ZIP model plotted a pattern almost identical with the BYM model. The goodness-of-fit criteria indicate that the mixture model is the one that best fits our data. Haematological tumours display a geographical pattern that could be partly explained by environmental determinants, as many of the highest-risk towns are located in heavily industrialised areas. CONCLUSIONS: The choice of one or another model has scant practical consequences. The pattern of distribution supports the hypothesis that differences in lifestyles, air/industrial pollution and migratory phenomena may determine the pattern of urban mortality due to these tumours. Funding: This study was financed by Grant Number EPY‐1176/02 from the Carlos III Institute of Health (ISCIII) and RCESP FIS‐C03/09 (Spanish Network for Cooperative Research in Epidemiologyand Public Health).