An Investigation of the Relationship between Geographic Distance to Treating Facility and Time betwe

by Devon Bonner

Submitted : Fall 2012

Although Caucasian women represent the highest frequency of breast cancer diagnoses in the United States, African American women are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer at younger ages and represent the highest mortality from this disease than any other racial or ethnic group. A large proportion of access to care directly correlates to geographic distance from patients to their treating facility. In this analysis we will systematically review the geographic distance from residence to treating facility in a statewide sample of African American women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer to investigate if this may be a factor contributing to this health disparity. Through our analysis we were able to describe the relationship between the time between diagnosis and initial treatment and the distance between residence and treating facility as a function: y= .856x²+ 46.91x -229.9. Therefore, as we had hypothesized, our analysis suggests a relationship between these two variables although other clinical and demographic factors should be investigated in further analysis.

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