The Impact of Social Vulnerability Index Changes on Overall and Race -Specific Prostate Cancer One-Year Survival Over a 20 Year Period (2000-2020)

Overview

The CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) measures an individual's health vulnerability based on their geographic location and environment. Previous studies have linked SVI at the time of diagnosis to cancer incidence and mortality rates. However, these s tudies have used only one SVI datapoint while using decades of cancer data, thus not incorporating how SVI changes over the time span of their cancer data. Here, the change in county-specific SVI values and their impact on the change in one-year prostate cancer (PrCa) survival rates were investigated, and it was hypothesized that no correlation would be found as previous research for correlation hadn’t ever looked at changes over time. This was done for the overall population and by self -reported race from 2000-2020. SVI county -level data and Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data that met the eligibility requirements were kept and then were analyzed using chi-squared tests through R 4.3.1. Out of 1,006 SEER counties, 444 were eligible for t he overall analysis, 397 for White PrCa cases, and 97 for Black PrCa cases. Most significantly, this novel study established positively correlated associations between SVI changes and one-year PrCa survival among the overall and White PrCa cases, which disproves the original hypothesis. Nevertheless, this study illustrated the necessity of looking at correlation through a change of time because it established a threshold for an SVI and PrCa survival rate correlation, which previous research hadn’t found. Further research is needed to generalize these findings to other cancers, stages of disease, and racial groups.