ASO Author Reflections: Tackling Breast Cancer Disparities in Rural America: An Old Challenge in a New Decade

Excerpt

Geography can be a powerful social determinant of health that impacts patient clinical outcomes. To date, literature has been replete with studies evaluating the relationship between residency along the rural–urban continuum and its implications for cancer quality indicators, from diagnosis through survivorship. Rural breast cancer patients are more likely to face barriers to accessing care, treatment delay, and have a lower probability of receiving guideline-concordant cancer care, compared with patients in urban areas.1 Reasons for these disparities include increased travel distance, poor oncology-related health information, and lack of access to oncology specialists.2 Yet, due to heterogeneity in the rural–urban designation across studies, the association of these disparities with clinical outcomes such as stage of presentation, treatment, and mortality has been inconsistent. …