Oral Cancer, Socioeconomic Status, and Access to Health Care in BC
Future Work
Explore different types of oral cancer
Oral cancer can be found in many different areas such as the throat, tongue, or the gums. Therefore, oral cancer cases can be separated by specific oral cancer type in order to give a better understanding of the causes. For example, a patient with cancer in their gums may have chewed tobacco as opposed to smoking. Different types of cancers may be clustered together based on their specific underlying factors. Just like assigning a single VANDIX score for multiple SES factors, considering all oral cancer patients as a whole may obscure specific variations between types.
Acquire oral cancer patient data
Future projects may apply the methods used in this project to 6-digit postal code locations of oral cancer patients. For future work on this topic, we would ideally be able to gather the 6 digit postal code data of oral cancer patient residences. With this data we would use the same methodology as with the injury points to compare SES to oral cancer, create clusters, and calculate the cost-distance to treatment centres. If we were unable to gather the patient residences data, hopefully we would be able to gain access to the diagnosis centre data.
Gather more patient information
To address the concern of limited information collected from BCCRC, this project would benefit from patient surveys inquiring about health history, eating habits, smoking, sunlight exposure, and alcohol consumption. This information would allow researchers to have a better idea of what factors might be leading to oral cancer. A similar endeavour called the BC Generations Project has already been undertaken where thousands of Canadians were continually surveyed about their history and their lifestyles. This will allow researchers to have a better idea of how these factors are contributing to cancer and other chronic diseases such as diabetes (BC Generations Project, 2012). To have a more in-depth analysis of oral cancer, researchers could assess different questions such as what factors affect a patient’s decision to undergo treatment and what type of treatment they choose. They could also explore how a patient’s decision correlates with access to treatment centres, SES, and lifestyle.
