Objective: Studies of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among Black and White cancer survivors have been based on small convenience samples and yielded inconsistent results. We examined Black-White disparities in survivors' HRQOL with a population-based sample, and tested the hypothesis that area-level segregation accounts for those disparities.
Design: A sample of survivors of 10 types of cancer was drawn from 11 U.S. state cancer registries and surveyed 12-15 months after diagnosis. The current sample consisted of 5195 survivors (415 Black, 4780 White) who resided in 584 counties.
Main outcome measures: SF-36 General Health subscale scores were used as the measure of HRQOL.
Results: Bivariate results revealed that Black survivors had significantly poorer HRQOL than did White survivors. Multilevel regression including individual-level (gender, age, marital status, education, cancer type, stage at diagnosis, cancer progression, comorbidities, race/ethnicity) and area-level (county segregation and poverty) variables found that HRQOL was poorer among survivors who resided in high-Black-segregated counties, whereas race/ethnicity was no longer significant.
Conclusion: These findings indicate that Black-White disparities in HRQOL among cancer survivors might be a function, not of race/ethnicity, but of area-level variables associated with race/ethnicity. The strong role of segregation highlights the need for interventions to target Black-segregated areas.