Newswise — Reston, VA - The Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute (HPI) announces the public launch of a new online tool that reveals the overlap between cancer disparities and social determinants of health (SDOH) using advanced heat maps of U.S.
counties. The Cancer Equity Compass (CEC) can identify high-opportunity targets for policies and programs to achieve equitable health outcomes in underserved populations. The CEC maps display the relationship between key cancer disparities – screening, prevalence and mortality rates – and 16 SDOH measures such as education, income, minority rates, social vulnerability, and pollution.
The full U.S. view allows users to identify geographical patterns within regions of the country.
CEC maps cover the 4 most common cancers with approximately 1 million new cases per year: breast, prostate, colorectal and lung. The objective of the CEC is to improve equity by identifying not only the extent of cancer disparities in different populations and communities, but to pinpoint community SDOH factors that may be barriers that lead to disparities and inequities. CEC visualization and reports can help guide researchers, community leaders, policy makers and other stakeholders in developing studies, policies and programs for large scale impact.
“This is an important tool that can support a multi-faceted approach to reduce disparities and promote equity. Disparities are multi-factorial and solutions require integrated data to inform solutions.