Objective: Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world, ranking first in men and second in women. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence and prevalence of skin cancer and its association with the Human Development Index (HDI) in the world.
Materials and Methods: The present study is a descriptive-analytic study based on extraction of cancer incidence data and cancer mortality rates from the World Bank for Cancer in 2018. The incidence and mortality rates and skin cancer distribution maps were drawn for world countries. To analyze data, correlation test and regression tests were used to evaluate the correlation between the incidence and mortality with HDI. The statistical analysis was carried out by Stata-14 and the significance level was estimated at the level of 0.05.
Results: Countries with the highest incidence of melanoma and non-melanoma cancer were Australia and New Zealand. The results of the study showed a positive and significant correlation between the incidence (R = 0.572, p<0.0001) and mortality (R=0.413, p<0.0001) of melanoma cancer with HDI index. Further, in non-melanoma cancer, there was a positive and significant correlation between incidence and HDI index (R=0.731, p<0.0001), while there was a negative correlation between non-melanoma and HDI (R=-0.437, p<0.0001); the linear regression model showed that increase in MYS, EYS and GNI caused to increases the incidence of melanoma and non-melanoma cancer. While increasing HDI leads to a decrease in mortality (R=4.5, p<0.05).
Conclusions: The incidence and mortality of skin cancer (melanoma and non-melanoma) are related to the development index (HDI). By increasing the HDI, the mortality rate of this cancer type decreases, so paying attention to the HDI in countries and increasing the education level of people to receive treatment can be effective in reducing the mortality rate of the patient.