CANCER DIFFERENTIAL AMONG US BLACKS AND WHITES - QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATES OF SOCIOECONOMIC-RELATED RISKS

This article analyzes 10 studies that assessed the association of soci oeconomic status (SES) with cancer occurrence among blacks and whites in the United States. The following summative inferences were made: th e associations of SES with cancer are similar among blacks and whites; cancers of organ sites with the most intimate environmental interface s have the strongest SES-cancer associations (stomach, lung, cervix, a nd rectum); the prevalence of exposure to low socioeconomic-related ri sks such as poverty are approximately fourfold greater among blacks; t he all-site population attributable risk percent due to low socioecono mic exposure among blacks is estimated to be four times that of whites , and similar data trends were observed for individual cancer sites su ch as the stomach and lung; and the three cancer sites of the stomach, lung, and cervix uteri account for nearly half of the observed US bla ck-white cancer rate difference. This review also found all 10 of the primary studies in this field to be ecological with respect to socioec onomic exposure measurement, ie, they used aggregate measures (eg, cen sus tract median education or family income) to characterize the indiv idual's exposure. The need for direct empirical validation of such mea sures to aid in interpretation of the extant data in this field is und erscored.