| Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains the third most common cause of malignancy-related deaths in the United States accounting for 50,000 deaths in 2009. Increasing rates of endoscopic screening have, in turn, resulted in a significant decrease in colon and rectum cancer mortality rates in recent years. Unfortunately, while the benefits of screening are readily becoming apparent, there are significant group disparities in the screening rates, disease incidence, survival and mortality. This study examines the geography of colorectal cancer incidence rates in Broome County, New York by zip code, focusing on group disparities by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status and health access. The target group for the study area is age 50 and above group as they are the at-risk population for colorectal cancer. The use of geospatial methods has been in place for a long time to represent the geographic distribution of health disparities, and to characterize risk zones. ArcMap, Clusterseer and the SPSS software packages were used to analyze the spatial and temporal patterns. |
