Poverty Tied to High Cancer Death Risk

Poor people are more likely to get cancer and die from it than rich people, the American Cancer Society said Monday, reporting the findings of a two-year study.

The research found that people living below the poverty level, no matter what their race, have a long-term cancer survival rate that is 10% to 15% below the average survival rate in America, which is approximately 50%.

Poor Americans also face an estimated 60% greater risk of developing lung cancer than Americans whose incomes exceed the poverty level, said epidemiologist Lawrence Garfinkel of the American Cancer Society.

Poor people’s chances of getting esophageal and stomach cancers are 300% and 100% greater than average, respectively, he said.

Garfinkel said the figures were based on previous studies of poor, black Americans that are included in the society’s two-year report, which is a compilation of previous research and statistics from the National Cancer Institute.

The report said, however that “ethnic differences in cancer are largely secondary to socioeconomic factors.”

Doctors associated with the report said that poor people probably run a higher risk of getting cancer because they are more likely to smoke and drink--habits associated with some types of cancers, including that of the lung.

Poor people also are less likely to seek timely medical help, they said.

“I see poor people come in with the disease when it’s too late to do something about it,” said Dr. Harold Freeman, director of surgery at Harlem Hospital and chairman of the society committee that commissioned the report.

“We know poor people are at greater health risk generally,” he said. “This is the first time a report of this magnitude has studied cancer as a specific health problem.”

The American Cancer Society commissioned the report in 1984, and it was prepared by the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Society doctors, who have reviewed the report, are recommending medical care programs that will emphasize the need for early detection and prompt treatment of cancer.

According to the society, 34 million Americans have a standard of living that is below the poverty level. Of those, 23 million are white, 9.5 million are black and 1.2 million are of other races.

“This report crosses racial lines; it is a question of poverty, not race,” Freeman said.