Abstract A02: Investigating the association between social disorganization, health-related quality of life (HRQL), and prostate cancer diagnoses in African American Men
Authors: Rodgers Carolyn D. , Zenk Shannon , Watson Karriem S. , Winn Robert , Evans Rupert , Balthazar Catherine , Chukwudozie Ifeanyi Beverly 
Published: February 2019

This proposed population-based study initiated by the Early Stage Investigator from a collaborative National Cancer Institute (NCI) P20 grant between Governors State University and the University of Illinois at Chicago attempts to identify the influence of social disorganization on health-related quality of life (HRQL) in African American men living in south suburban Cook County in Illinois with prostate cancer diagnosis using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) to measure and map disability by zip code using the Geographic Information System (GIS). Although the diagnosis is 65% higher for African American men in the U.S, the relationship between prostate cancer diagnosis, health-related quality of life (HRQL), and social disorganization has not been fully examined.

Pertinent experimental procedures proposed to examine this relationship include using U.S census data to obtain geographical characteristics of socially disorganized communities within south suburban Cook County in Illinois, assessing cases of prostate cancer diagnosis for African American men living in the parameters of the research, examining HRQL for these cases using ICF classifications, spatially mapping these prostate cases to determine SD, and completing a regression analysis based on HRQL and SD scores.

Currently, prostate cancer is the number one cancer among all men in Illinois with 42,773 identified cases between 2002 and 2006 for all races (IDPH, Illinois Cancer Registry, 2008). Additionally, African American men living in Cook County have the highest rate for all racial groups at 227.1 per 100,000 between 2002 and 2006 (IDPH, Illinois Cancer Registry, 2008). More importantly, African American men tend to have fewer prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests, increasing the risk for latent diagnosis and lower survival rates. These proposed data hypothesized that social disorganization might increase risk for prostate cancer rates and lower HRQL based on socioeconomic and environmental influences identified in the ICF.

The proposed research attempts to identify preventable risk factors that would assist in the development of preventative care for men at risk for prostate cancer, and increasing the HRQL of African American men with a current diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Citation Format: Carolyn D. Rodgers, Shannon Zenk, Karriem S. Watson, Robert Winn, Rupert Evans, Sr., Catherine Balthazar, Ifeanyi Beverly Chukwudozie. Investigating the association between social disorganization, health-related quality of life (HRQL), and prostate cancer diagnoses in African American Men [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Tenth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2017 Sep 25-28; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2018;27(7 Suppl):Abstract nr A02.