Patient-Reported Quality of Life and Socioeconomic Disadvantage Among Patients With Head and Neck Cancer

What are the associations between area-level socioeconomic disadvantage and quality of life in patients diagnosed with head and neck cancer?In this cross-sectional study of 600 patients with head and neck cancer, those who resided in areas of greater deprivation (ie, greater socioeconomic disadvantage) were found to have clinically meaningful lower head and neck cancer–specific well-being scores compared with patients who resided in areas of less deprivation.These findings suggest that multidisciplinary cancer care teams could identify patients with greater deprivation early using screening for social determinants of health and geographic data and work to address their needs by providing equitable resource allocation where appropriate.

Corresponding Author: Eric Adjei Boakye, PhD, Department of Public Health Sciences, Henry Ford Health, One Ford Place, Detroit, MI 48202 (eadjei1@hfhs.org).

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