The size of your paycheck could influence what cancers you are at risk of developing.
New research looked at which types of cancers were prevalent in rich communities and which were more commonly seen in poor regions, a Wiley new release reported.
The study also found that regions with the highest levels of poverty had lower cancer instances but higher mortality rates.
The findings highlight the importance of looking at socioeconomic status when analyzing cancer risks.
To make their findings the researchers compared the most common types of cancers afflicting areas with high poverty rates to those prevalent in wealthier communities. The team looked at over three million tumors that were diagnosed between the years of 2005 and 2009 in states encompassing 42 percent of the United States population.
When all cancer types were combined socioeconomic status had a "negligible" effect on cancer instances. Thirty-two out of 39 cancers showed a "significant" association with poverty.
The cancers "Kaposi sarcoma and cancers of the larynx, cervix, penis, and liver" were most common in low income areas, the news release reported. "Melanoma, thyroid, other non-epithelial skin, and testis cancers" were more prevalent in richer communities.
"At first glance, the effects seem to cancel one another out. But the cancers more associated with poverty have lower incidence and higher mortality, and those associated with wealth have higher incidence and lower mortality," Francis Boscoe, PhD, of the New York State Cancer Registry, said in the news release. "When it comes to cancer, the poor are more likely to die of the disease while the affluent are more likely to die with the disease."
Recent technological developments have made it easier to link patient's addresses with their "neighborhood characteristics."
"Our hope is that our paper will illustrate the value and necessity of doing this routinely in the future," Boscoe said.
