Socioeconomic Disparities in Cancer Incidence and Mortality
Socioeconomic Disparities in Cancer Incidence and Mortality
The association between socioeconomic status (SES) and health status is so robust and consistent that epidemiologists routinely adjust for it as a potential confounding variable when evaluating the etiologic role of other risk factors for disease. This chapter turns this logic on its head, focusing on SES as a fundamental determinant of disease, specifically cancer incidence, and mortality. The chapter is organized into four sections. The first section defines the concept of SES and describes the various approaches to its measurement. The second section summarizes observations on the general nature of the association between SES and cancer morbidity, mortality, and survival. The third section outlines the general categories of explanations, both causal and noncausal, that have been put forward to account for the association between SES and cancer. The fourth and final section provides a survey of the specific causal mechanisms underlying the relation between SES and cancer.
Keywords: socioeconomic status, health status, cancer risk, cancer morbidity, survival
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