Socioeconomic inequality of cancer mortality in the United States: a spatial data mining approach.
BACKGROUND
The objective of this study was to demonstrate the use of an association rule mining approach to discover associations between selected socioeconomic variables and the four most leading causes of cancer mortality in the United States. An association rule mining algorithm was applied to extract associations between the 1988-1992 cancer mortality rates for colorectal, lung, breast, and prostate cancers defined at the Health Service Area level and selected socioeconomic variables from the 1990 United States census. Geographic information system technology was used to integrate these data which were defined at different spatial resolutions, and to visualize and analyze the results from the association rule mining process.


RESULTS
Health Service Areas with high rates of low education, high unemployment, and low paying jobs were found to associate with higher rates of cancer mortality.


CONCLUSIONS
Association rule mining with geographic information technology helps reveal the spatial patterns of socioeconomic inequality in cancer mortality in the United States and identify regions that need further attention.
Vinnakota
Srinivas
S
Department of Geography and Anthropology, 227 Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. svinna1@lsu.edu
Lam
Nina S N
NS
D000465:Algorithms; D002391:Catchment Area, Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002423:Cause of Death; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005260:Female; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology / Q000401:mortality*; D011204:Poverty Areas; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology