Male Cancer Mortality Rates Higher in Lower-Income Areas, Study Finds

Men who resided in lower-income counties in the 1990s had higher cancer mortality rates than men in higher-income counties, according to a study in this week's Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the AP/Las Vegas Sun reports. By contrast, in the 1950s, men in higher-income counties had higher cancer mortality rates than did men in lower-income counties, the study found. In the study, conducted by the National Cancer Institute, researchers divided counties nationwide into five groups based on the socioeconomic levels of residents. Researchers compared 15 indicators, such as education, median family income and home value, to determine the socioeconomic levels of residents. According to the study, men in counties with the highest socioeconomic levels in the 1950s had 50% higher cancer mortality rates than men in counties with the lowest socioeconomic levels. The difference in the rates decreased in the 1970s, and by 1998, the last year studied, men in counties with the lowest socioeconomic levels had 19% higher cancer mortality rates than men in counties with the highest socioeconomic levels. Researchers said that the trend matches one found in a second study of socioeconomic levels and cigarette smoking in men ages 25 to 64. In the second study, researchers found that men in counties with the highest socioeconomic levels had a mortality rate from lung cancer -- of which smoking "is thought to be the major cause" -- twice as high as men in counties with the lowest socioeconomic levels. However, by 1998, men in counties with the lowest socioeconomic levels had lung cancer mortality rates 56% higher than men in counties with the highest socioeconomic levels, the study found. In 1999, the AP/Sun reports that individuals with an education level lower than a high school degree, a "generally less affluent" group, had a 36.2% smoking rate, compared with 11.8% for individuals with college degrees. Researchers said, "Given the latency period between the start of regular smoking and cancer death, we should expect socioeconomic disparities in male cancer mortality to continue to widen in the near future" (AP/Las Vegas Sun, 6/18).