American Cancer Society: Cancer mortality more likely when educated less

William Atkins
Monday, 17 September 2007 19:34

Science - Health

According to a study performed by the American Cancer Society, black and white men and women are much more likely to die from cancer if they have a high school education or less when compared to those with a college education.           

Elizabeth Ward, a scientist with Epidemiology and Surveillance Research of the American Cancer Society (Atlanta, Georgia) and lead author in the study, states within the article, “Although both race and socioeconomic status are well known to influence mortality patterns in the United States, few studies have examined the simultaneous influence of these factors on cancer incidence and mortality. We examined relationships among race, education level, and mortality from cancers of the lung, breast, prostate, colon and rectum, and all sites combined in contemporary US vital statistics.”

The results of the study, which analyzed data taken in 2001 from the U.S. Census Bureau, found that people with a high school education or less were generally twice as likely to die from cancer as those with a college education.

Specifically, the study looked at over 137,000 cancer deaths in black and white men and women between the ages of 25 and 64 years (in 47 of 50 states in the United States, plus the District of Columbia).

Black males with twelve years or less of education were found to be approximately 2.4 times more likely to die from cancer than black males with more than twelve years of education. Similarly, white males with twelve years or less of education had rates of cancer deaths that were 2.2 times higher than with white males with more than twelve years of education.

Black women were 1.4 times more likely to die from cancer, while white women were 1.8 times more likely to die, under these same educational differences.

The article “Cancer Mortality in the United States by Education Level and Race” is authored by Jessica D. Albano, Elizabeth Ward, Ahmedin Jemal, Robert Anderson, Vilma E. Cokkinides, Taylor Murray, Jane Henley, Jonathan Liff, and Michael J. Thun. It was published online on Tuesday, September 11, 2007, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The authors stated within the article that “Identifying groups at high risk of death from cancer by level of education as well as by race may be useful in targeting interventions and tracking cancer disparities.”

The original article appears online at the Journal of the National Cancer Institute: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/djm127.

According to statistics from the American Cancer Society, in 2007, about 1.45 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed throughout the year. Of that number, about 559,600 people are estimated to die—around 39%.