• Posted May 6, 2026

Children Living Near Gas Stations Have Higher Cancer Risk, Study Finds

Children who live near a gas station are more likely to develop leukemia or other childhood cancers, a new study says.

Living within 250 meters (820 feet) of a gas station raises childhood cancer risk, and the risk increases the closer a child’s home is to the pump, researchers report in the journal Environmental Pollution.

The risk is highest for those living within 100 meters (328 feet) of a service station, researchers found.

However, cancer risk was lower in places where local laws require pumps equipped with gasoline vapor recovery systems – which are intended to reduce emissions during fueling, researchers said.

“Such measures are simple and not costly to implement, and they would deliver major health benefits and help reduce inequalities in exposure levels,” senior researcher Stéphane Buteau said in a news release. Buteau is a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Montreal in Canada.

Gasoline contains benzene, a known carcinogen linked to leukemia, researchers said in background notes. Benzene is released into the environment during vehicle refueling and while gas is unloaded into underground tanks from tanker trucks.

For the study, researchers tracked the health of more than 824,000 newborns in Quebec, Canada, based on how close their home addresses were to nearby gas stations.

Of the children, more than 99,000 lived within 250 meters of a filling station, and nearly 14,800 within less than 100 meters.

Overall, newborns living within 250 meters of a filling station had 14% higher risk of any form of cancer, results showed.

Leukemia risk was 12% higher for those living between 100 meters and 250 meters away and 35% higher for those living within 100 meters of a gas station.

Risk also was elevated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, an aggressive form of the blood cancer – 15% within 100 meters to 250 meters, and 27% higher for less than 100 meters.

The cancer risk increased even more when researchers excluded data from Montreal, a city where gas stations are required to control their vapor emission.

The risk was 42% higher for any cancer and 55% higher for leukemia when looking only at gas pumps that weren’t required to have vapor recovery systems, researchers found.

“While we don’t know exactly how well these regulations are being followed, it’s a compelling finding that supports the hypothesis that such measures do in fact reduce atmospheric emissions,” Buteau said.

These results suggest that gasoline emissions should be considered a potential risk factor for childhood cancer, researchers concluded.

“Research suggests that only 5% to 10% of childhood cancers are attributable solely to genetics, while the rest are due to other factors, particularly environmental ones,” Buteau said.

More information

The National Capital Poison Center has more on gasoline toxicity.

SOURCES: University of Montreal, news release, May 4, 2026; Environmental Pollution, April 2026