Health disparities research increasingly relies on a social determinants of health approach, which focuses on identifying modifiable social and environmental factors that adversely affect health outcomes to create health disparities. We have used a multilevel framework that leverages cancer registry and US census data to examine the role of neighborhood social determinants in cancer incidence and survival in Louisiana. Multilevel studies of cases of colorectal, liver, and breast cancer reveal that differential exposure to unfavorable social and physical environments do contribute to racial disparities in cancer. In particular, we have observed that concentrated disadvantage, a robust measure of neighborhood environment, was positively associated with the incidence of colorectal cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma but not triple-negative breast cancer.

Citation Format: Richard Scribner, Denise Danos, Claudia Leonardi, Tekeda Ferguson, Qingzhao Yu, Neal Simonsen, Xiao-Cheng Wu. Exploring social determinants of cancer outcomes using multilevel spatial analysis [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2018 Nov 2-5; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(6 Suppl):Abstract nr IA08.

©2020 American Association for Cancer Research.
2020
American Association for Cancer Research.