Cervical Cancer Incidence Varies by Neighborhood Wealth

THURSDAY, Dec. 2, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Cervical cancer incidence varies significantly between poor and wealthy New York City neighborhoods, according to a study published online Nov. 24 in JAMA Oncology.

Stephanie Cham, M.D., from Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and colleagues quantified the association between neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) and the incidence of cervical cancer in New York City (2012 through 2016). The analysis included data from the New York State Cancer Registry and linked with self-reported neighborhood-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.

The researchers found that age-standardized cervical cancer incidence rates varied across neighborhoods, ranging from 4.4 to 14.7 cases per 100,000 woman-years. Neighborhood SES index was strongly associated with cervical cancer incidence, with women residing in the lowest-SES neighborhoods 73 percent more likely to develop cervical cancer than those in the highest-SES neighborhoods (interdecile incidence rate ratio, 1.73), when adjusting for age, corresponding to incidence rates of 11.2 and 6.5 cases per 100,000 woman-years, respectively.

“We found that New York’s lowest-SES neighborhoods, populated predominantly by Black and Hispanic residents, had cervical cancer incidence rates 73 percent higher than the mostly white populations of the city’s highest-SES neighborhoods,” the authors write.

Two authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

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