Challenges and Health Disparities in Prostate Cancer: Healthcare Access as a Driver of Inequities in a Rural Hospital Network

Late stage (4) prostate cancer increased over a 20-year period in the mostly rural ECU Health 9-hospital system, disproportionately affecting smaller community hospitals with higher death rates.

• Why it matters: The study addresses how structural and access barriers, alongside biological differences, contribute to prostate cancer inequities across rural care settings in North Carolina.
• What they did: Using a dataset of all de novo prostate cancer patients with diagnosis and/or treatment records in the ECU Health 9-hospital system, investigators characterized structural inequities, access barriers, and prognostic factors over 20 years.
• The result: Late stage (4) disease rose across the analytic period, was higher than NCDB references by period, and was linked to worse outcomes in community, mostly rural programs lacking required components of care.

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