Does Where You Live Affect Melanoma Risk?

Source: The Dermatologist, February 2019

States with a higher incidence of melanoma and higher density of dermatologists had better survival rates, according to the findings of a recent study. Conversely, states with lower melanoma incidence had higher mortality rates.1

“This study is a bird’s eye view of melanoma survival in United States,” said Zachary Hopkins, MD, first author of the study and resident in Internal Medicine at University of Utah Health in Salt Lake City. “We are interested in finding disparities in state health care systems to target specific states to improve care for people.”2

In the study, Hopkins and his colleagues calculated state-based mortality-to-incidence ratios (MIR) using the United States Cancer Statistics data from 1999 to 2014. They assessed associations between MIR and dermatologist density, primary care provider density, number of physicians by state, number of National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Centers (NCIDCCs), healthcare spending per capita, average household income, racial/ethnic makeup of a population, percentage of uninsured, and percentage with bachelor’s degree.

Menu