Associations of social vulnerability index with patient-reported outcomes in women treated with chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer

Background: In a convenience sample of women scheduled for chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer, we investigated associations of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's neighborhood-level social vulnerability index (SVI) with pretreatment demographics and patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures (health behavior, function and quality of life, treatment toxicities during chemotherapy).

Methods: The SVI Overall score is comprised of 4 themes: socioeconomic, household composition, minority status/language, and household type/transportation, with scores ranging from 0 = lowest to 1 = highest vulnerability neighborhoods. Participant SVI scores were derived from zip codes listed in the patient's address within the electronic medical record (EMR). Associations of study variables with SVI were evaluated using Spearman correlation for continuous variables and Kruskal-Wallis tests for categorical variables.

Results: In a sample of 309 women, the mean age was 56 years (range 23-83) and 75% White. Greater vulnerability SVI Overall score was associated with lower education (P =.02), nonmarriage (P ≤.0001), higher body mass index (P =.03), and prechemotherapy PRO measures such as fewer self-reported walking minutes/week (P ≤.001), history of smoking (P =.02) and alcohol use (P < .001), depression (P =.01), and lower emotional social support (P =.008). During chemotherapy, moderate, severe, or very severe symptoms were associated with greater vulnerability SVI Overall scores for hot flashes (P =.03), arthralgia (P =.02), myalgia (P =.02), peripheral neuropathy (P =.01), edema of limbs (P =.04), and nausea (P <.001).

Conclusions: SVI scores derived from addresses in the patient's EMR can be used to generate information that adds to the patient's social history in ways that are informative for anticipating and monitoring chemotherapy-related toxicities.