Does Socioeconomic Disparity in Cancer Incidence Vary Across Racial/Ethnic Groups?
In an article in, Cancer Causes and Control, researchers attempting to examine the relationship between cancer incidence, socioeconomic status (SES), and race/ethnicity found that SES disparities in the incidence of cancer varied significantly when stratified by race/ethnicity. Using data on 5 invasive cancers (breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, and prostate) diagnosed between 1998 and 2003 and reported to the California Cancer Registry (n=376,158), the researchers found variations in SES disparities for all cancers across racial and ethnic groups. For breast and prostate cancer, incidence increased with increased socioeconomic status (SES) across all racial groups, however “the magnitude of the SES gradients differed substantially” by race/ethnicity. For example, among Hispanic women, breast cancer incidence rates for those in the lowest SES areas were about 50% the rates of those in the highest SES areas, while breast cancer rates for non-Hispanic white, black, and Asian and Native
