Health Inequalities and RT Outcomes
Socioeconomic inequalites in cancer are a major public health challenge globally and locally – highlighted in the recent Cancer Research UK report: Cancer in the UK 2025: Socioeconomic deprivaton. Inequalites are defined as the unfair, avoidable, and systemic differences between people from the most and least socioeconomically deprived groups.
Head and neck cancer is an exemplar of an under-prioritised cancer with rising incidence, persistently poor survival, and marked inequalites. Rates of advanced-stage HNC diagnosis and mortality are over 2-fold higher in the most compared to the least socioeconomically deprived communites of the UK.
Inequalities impact across the cancer pathway including from referral and diagnosis to timeliness and fidelity of cancer treatment and through to survivorship.
In this theme we aim to investigate health inequality and socioeconomic factors related to radiotherapy response. Our research will involve identifying and interrogating one or more key socioeconomic factors associated with poor radiotherapy outcomes in the Scottish population.
The theme is being led by David Conway, Cat Douglas and Claire Paterson; and will focus on head and neck cancer as an exemplar through the Glasgow Head and Neck Cancer (GLAHNC) research group.