Browsing by Author "Deapen, Dennis"
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Item Socioeconomic status and cancers of the female breast and reproductive organs: a comparison across racial/ethnic populations in Los Angeles County, California (United States)(1998) Liu, Lihua; Deapen, Dennis; Bernstein, LeslieOBJECTIVES: Despite the fact that socioeconomic status (SES) has been shown to have important implications in health related issues, population-based cancer registries in the United States do not routinely collect SES information. This study presents a model to estimate the SES of cancer patients in the registry database. METHODS: At the Los Angeles Cancer Surveillance Program (CSP), we developed a model to estimate each cancer patient's SES from aggregate measurements of the census tract of residence (n = 1,640) at time of diagnosis. We then applied the SES estimates to observe the relationship between SES and risk of cancers of the female breast and reproductive organs including cancers of the ovary, cervix uteri, and corpus uteri. The analyses were performed on the cumulative records (n = 127,819) of cancer patients diagnosed between 1972 and 1992 in Los Angeles County, California, for the mutually exclusive racial/ethnic groups of non-Hispanic Whites, Hispanic Whites, Blacks, Asians, and persons of other ethnic groups. RESULTS: We found SES is positively associated with female breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and cancer of the corpus uteri, but inversely associated with cervical cancer. These SES trends were quite consistent across age groups among non-Hispanic White women. Variations by race/ethnicity in the SES patterns were also found, with Asians exhibiting little association. CONCLUSIONS: Our model of measuring SES is sufficiently sensitive to capture the trends. Adopting the aggregate approach to measure SES in population-based registry data appears to be useful.Item The Influence of Race, Ethnicity, and Individual Socioeconomic Factors on Breast Cancer Stage at Diagnosis(2006) Lantz, Paula M.; Mujahid, Mahasin; Schwartz, Kendra; Janz, Nancy K.; Fagerlin, Angela; Salem, Barbara; Liu, Lihua; Deapen, Dennis; Katz, Steven J.Objectives. Previous research has generally found that racial/ethnic differences in breast cancer stage at diagnosis attenuate when measures of socioeconomic status are included in the analysis, although most previous research measured socioeconomic status at the contextual level. This study investigated the relation between race/ethnicity, individual socioeconomic status, and breast cancer stage at diagnosis. Methods.Women with stage 0 to III breast cancer were identified from populationbased data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results tumor registries in the Detroit and Los Angeles metropolitan areas. These data were combined with data from a mailed survey in a sample of White, Black, and Hispanic women (n=1700). Logistic regression identified factors associated with early-stage diagnosis. Results. Black and Hispanic women were less likely to be diagnosed with earlystage breast cancer than were White women (P<.001). After control for study site, age, and individual socioeconomic factors, the odds of early detection were still significantly less for Hispanic women (odds ratio [OR]=0.45) and Black women (OR=0.72) than for White women. After control for the method of disease detection, the White/Black disparity attenuated to insignificance; the decreased likelihood of early detection among Hispanic women remained significant (OR=0.59). Conclusion. The way in which racial/ethnic minority status and socioeconomic characteristics produce disparities in women’s experiences with breast cancer deserves further research and policy attention.