Breast Cancer Has Been Controlled Across Many

¶ … Breast cancer has been controlled across many different variables, but it has rarely been researched specifically across socioeconomic status. The main focus is whether there is a higher incidence of breast cancer among people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Studies have shown that this group does have less access to health care (CDC, 2005), and even when people in this situation do have access they are less likely to actually utilize those services. Women are much less likely to get a breast cancer screening (mammogram) if they are economically disadvantaged. Thus, it is actually more difficult to conduct studies regarding this population. However, there is evidence to suggest, among the women from this classification, that there is actually a lower incidence of breast cancer than in women who are economically more affluent.

There have been very few studies that have looked at the socioeconomically disadvantaged population and breast cancer, but some evidence, as to this population, has been collected. Women with low incomes were less likely to get breast cancer exams, and women who had a high school education or less were also much less likely to receive the examinations. However, one study conducted in Canada with more than 200,000 women found that even though women in higher income brackets receive better overall healthcare, they actually have a much higher incidence of breast cancer. A previous study had examined whether women in higher income brackets had more breast cancer diagnosis because they did receive the better care, but this was refuted. Women in the lower income bracket who did get breast cancer screenings, had a mortality rate 15% lower than women in the higher income bracket (Fugate, 2011).

The second question asked whether people in different ethnic groups were more susceptible to breast cancer because of their economic disadvantage. Studies found that there was some evidence of an ethnic component for positive diagnosis of breast cancer. Researchers at the California Breast Cancer Research program found that certain ethnic groups in their state were more susceptible. The conclusion was that Hispanic women, followed in sequence by blacks, whites, and Asians, were more susceptible to breast cancer (Wright, 2000). Although there differences in the incidence of breast cancer have been shown among different ethnicities, statistically, there is so slight a difference as to be negligible. It has been shown, even in different ethnic groups, that more affluent women do show a greater incidence of breast cancers (Fugate, 2011).

For the proposed study it is expected that the findings will be about the same as they have been with the other studies. However, there was at least one study in which women in low socioeconomic conditions were at a disadvantage. The women in this study were found to have a greater incidence of breast cancer when they had the means to have the examination. The issue here was that the women in this study, conducted by Wright (2000), had never been diagnosed. So, the study was seen to be somewhat skewed. In the conclusion, the authors said that a limitation of the study was that the population that they study was conducted with made it so that the study could not be replicated. Another limitation of this study, and others, is that they do not differentiate between the types of breast cancer. It has been proven that more affluent women have a greater overall risk of contracting breast cancer, and of dying from the disease, but there have been no studies which looked at whether this remained constant depending on type of breast cancer. This could also be significant since there are many types that seem to effect different populations differently. Since the incidence of breast cancer was found to be 25% greater in more affluent women (the study did not put a number on this affluence), but the risk of death was only 11% greater (Fugate, 2011). This figure could show that affluent women were more susceptible to the more virulent strains, but less so to other less deadly types of breast cancer.