Video
BETA What is a cancer disparity?
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• July 22, 2024
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What is a cancer disparity? So cancer disparities are when there are unequal outcomes between two different groups. And so for cancer disparities, they really focus on the incidence differences and incidence differences and outcomes, differences in therapies, differences in survivorship, differences in overall survival. And so if everyone is receiving the exact same care and exact same outcomes, no disparities exist. If there are differences in outcomes between groups based on race, social economic status, gender, age, those are disparities. And probably some of the most important disparities is when you can, when you see that some groups are performing and doing better than other groups that can't be explained by biologic, biologic mechanisms and maybe more directed towards social determinants of health, that are really the ones that you worry about, because those are the potentially correctable ones where you can then bring people up. So disparities are differences in outcomes in cancer care. Disparity essentially is a way to define a difference in terms of what you're seeing in a population. So, for example, when we talk about cancer disparities and we look at different patient populations, whether it's an ethnic population or a population from a different district, if we see a difference in terms of the outcomes for one population compared to the other, that can be a cancer disparity. If we see a difference in terms of the survival for one patient population over another, that can be a disparity. If we see a difference of economics or finances that is affecting the patient population, especially in cancer, that can also highlight some disparities and differences that we might see in the patient population.

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