(HealthDay News) — Income and area-level disadvantage are the largest contributors to racial differences in financial hardship among older US adults with cancer, according to a study published online June 18 in Cancer.
Elizabeth S. Davis, MSPH, from Boston University, and colleagues conducted a survey to assess financial hardship among older adults diagnosed with cancer. Responses were received from 721 white (84%) or Black (16%) patients (≥65 years) who were diagnosed with breast (34%), prostate (27%), lung (17%) or colorectal (14%) cancer or lymphoma (9%) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham between 2000 and 2019.
The researchers found that Black patients reported lower income (65 versus 34% earning <$50,000) and greater scores on the Area Deprivation Index. Compared with white patients, Black patients reported significantly higher rates of overall (39 versus 18%), material (29 versus 11%), and psychological (27 versus 11%) hardship. These characteristics explained roughly half (51%) of racial differences in financial hardship among cancer survivors, driven by differences in income (23%) and area deprivation (11%).
“Future studies should consider not only socioeconomic variables like income but also a combination of race and the regional context of where a patient lives to better understand the downstream effects of structural racism on cancer survivors,” the authors write.
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