Cancer Death Rates Higher for Children in Neighborhoods With Persistent Poverty

MONDAY, April 21, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The risk for cancer death is higher among children diagnosed in neighborhoods marked by persistent poverty, according to a study published online April 21 in Pediatrics.

Emma Hymel, M.P.H., from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, and colleagues used Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-22 Registries Incidence Data with Census Tract Attributes Database data to examine the association between persistent poverty and early mortality and overall cancer-specific mortality among children from 2006 to 2020.

The study included 97,132 children; 12.63 percent resided in a persistent-poverty neighborhood at diagnosis. The researchers found that living in a persistent-poverty neighborhood was associated with a higher risk for early mortality and a higher risk for overall cancer death in adjusted models (adjusted hazard ratios, 1.26 and 1.15, respectively). For children with leukemias, central nervous system tumors, and hepatic tumors, persistent poverty was associated with overall cancer mortality (adjusted hazard ratios, 1.20, 1.14, and 1.36, respectively).

“Our findings contribute to a growing body of literature on the effect of social drivers of health on pediatric cancer outcomes,” the authors write. “Further research is needed to identify multilevel interventions to mitigate disparities in pediatric cancer outcomes and to examine geographic differences in these disparities.”

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