Objective: Cancer is one of the main causes of death in Iran. Socioeconomic factors, such as human development index (HDI), affect cancer incidence. The aim of this study was to determine the cancer incidence pattern in Iran provinces and its association with HDI.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on the latest national cancer registry report. The HDI index values include: education, life expectancy, and GDP indexes. The extracted data, including age-standardized incidence rate (ASR) for cancers in men and women of each province, as well as the HDI value of the province, were analyzed by SPSS. HDI was classified in four categories, low (score < 0.55), medium (0.55-0.7), high (0.7-0.8), and very high (0.8-1.0).
Results: The lowest HDI pertained to Sistan (0.582). The highest ASR of cancer related to women were in Yazd (173 per 100,000), while in Markazi for men (180 per 100,000). A significant correlation was observed between ASR of cancer incidence in female gender and HDI (r=0.418; p=0.021), while no correlation was found between ASR of cancer incidence in men and HDI (r=0.322; p=0.083). The mean ASR for cancer incidence among women in areas with high HDI (125.2 ± 37.2) was significantly higher compared to that of regions with medium HDI (96.2 ± 28.9) (p=0.024).
Conclusions: The findings of the present study suggest that the age-standardized cancer incidence for the female gender was higher in neighborhoods with higher human development index, whereas no significant relationship was observed between age-standardized cancer incidence for the male gender and human development index.