Background: The aim of this study is to investigate the correlation between socioeconomic status and breast cancer outcomes in African countries as well as to analyze the differences in breast cancer Mortality to Incidence Ratio (MIR) based on health care setups in each country.
Material and Methods: Standardised incidence and mortality data were obtained from GLOBOCAN (2012) database. Data on Health System Attainment (HSA) were obtained from World Health Report 2000. Data for National Human Development Index (HDI) were obtained from Human Development Report 2015. Pearson correlation and linear regression analysis were performed to investigate the effects of HDI and HSA on breast cancer MIR. SPSS version 20 were used for statistical analysis. p ≤ 0.05 was considered significant.
Results: An inverse correlation was revealed by breast cancer MIR with both HDI (r = -0.911, p < 0.001) and HSA (r = -0.765, p < 0.001). One-way ANOVA demonstrated that high HDI countries has significantly low MIR as compared to medium and low HDI countries of Africa (p < 0.001). Linear regression analysis also reported a negative effect of MIR with both HDI (adjusted R2 = 0.827, β = -0.911, p < 0.001) and HSA (adjusted R2 = 0.576, β = -0.765, p < 0.001).
Conclusions: It is concluded that there are significant health care disparities among different African countries due to their different national HDIs. Economic development and improvement in health care setups in under developed countries are required to control their breast cancer burden.