Abstract D002: Associations between multilevel health factors and cancer mortality according to rural residence

Surveillance reports consistently observe that cancer mortality rates are higher in rural than urban areas, yet data on the multi-level factors that impact rural disparities have not been fully leveraged to identify the areas of greatest need for research and policy changes. To address gaps in cancer data for rural communities, we adapted the County Health Rankings model of the multiple determinants of health to cancer. Using publicly available data, we compared health factors and cancer mortality for rural versus urban counties in Wisconsin. Counties were defined as rural (N=19) or non-rural (“urban”, N=53) based on Rural Urban Continuum Codes 7-9 and 1-6, respectively. Age-adjusted county-specific cancer mortality rates for all cancer sites combined were obtained from the state cancer registry. Health factor data were obtained from multiple sources in 4 categories: health behaviors (smoking, drinking alcohol, obesity, physical activity); clinical care (HPV vaccination; breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening; density of primary care physicians); socioeconomic factors (Area Deprivation Index based on 17 census items); and physical environment (access to grocery stores and alcohol outlets, air quality, pesticide use). Items were ranked for the 72 counties with lower-risk values having better ranks, e.g., higher values for screening and lower values for obesity ranked closer to 1. A composite health factor ranking was defined using County Health Rankings weights, equal to 0.3*(behavioral factors) + 0.2*(clinical factors) + 0.4*(socioeconomic factors) + 0.1*(physical environment). Cancer death rates were higher in rural than in urban counties (181 vs 164 per 100,000). The composite health ranking was positively associated with cancer mortality rates (Pearson correlation coefficient 0.38, 95% CI 0.17-0.57), with worse rankings for rural (average 44, interquartile range, IQR 39-51) than for urban counties (average 34, IQR 25-42). The difference in health factor category rankings between rural and urban counties was greatest for socioeconomic factors (rural average rank 50 vs urban average rank 32) followed by clinical care (rural average rank 43 vs urban average rank 34) and behavioral factors (rural average rank 40 vs urban average rank 35). Physical environment factor rankings were slightly better for rural (average 33) than urban (average 37) counties. In conclusion, we confirmed that cancer mortality in Wisconsin is higher in rural as compared with urban areas. Future analyses will (a) refine the set of health factors used to construct the composite health factor ranking (e.g., account more fully for distance to care) and (b) optimize the weights applied to the categories to calculate the composite ranking. These initial findings suggest that, to increase the impact of future research and policy efforts, clinical and behavioral interventions targeting cancer health disparities in rural counties should include strategies to address socioeconomic factors.

Citation Format: Amy Trentham-Dietz, Noelle K LoConte, Betsy Rolland, Lisa Cadmus-Bertram, Tracy M Downs, John M Eason, Cody M Fredrick, John M Hampton, Xiao Zhang, Ronald E Gangnon. Associations between multilevel health factors and cancer mortality according to rural residence [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2019 Sep 20-23; San Francisco, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(6 Suppl_2):Abstract nr D002.