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• Posted January 29, 2025

Housing Discrimination Increases Cancer Death Risk Among Young Patients

Children, teens and young adults have a higher risk of dying from cancer if they were raised in a neighborhood that’s been historically subjected to discriminatory housing practices.

Young cancer patients have a 62% increased risk of dying if they live in a previously “redlined” residential area, researchers reported in a study published Jan. 27 in the journal Cancer.

Even after adjusting for other factors, the risk of cancer death remains 32% higher among young people from redlined neighborhoods, researchers found.

“Our study names racism as a potential driver of outcomes for young patients with cancer,” lead researcher Dr. Kristine Karvonen, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, said in a news release.

The practice of redlining involved denying mortgages and lending to people of color, resulting in segregation and economic disadvantage.

Maps drawn up in the 1920s and 1930s literally highlighted neighborhoods in red ink and declared them “hazardous” for lending due to their racial makeup.

Housing reform laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s made the practice illegal, but the effects of this discrimination have echoed down over the decades.

Previous studies have linked redlining to higher risk of cancer death for adults, but this is the first to examine the potential effects of housing discrimination on younger people’s chances against cancer, researchers said.

For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 4,300 people younger than 40 who were diagnosed with cancer in the Washington cities of Seattle and Tacoma.

Using redlining maps, the team figured out which patients had been raised in an area subjected to housing discrimination.

The five-year survival rate of young cancer patients from a redlined neighborhood was 85%, compared to more than 90% for those living elsewhere, results show.

Similarly, the 10-year survival rate was 81% for those from redlined neighborhoods compared with 88% elsewhere.

“This study agrees with previous research that living in an area that was previously redlined nearly a century ago is associated with poor outcomes for patients with cancer today and adds young patients with cancer as a population at risk,” Karvonen said.

The next step in research will be to figure out why historic redlining influences today’s cancer risk, Karvonen said. With that knowledge, steps can be taken to improve the cancer treatment and prevention among people from these neighborhoods.

More information

The University of California-Berkeley has more on redlining.

SOURCE: American Cancer Society, news release, Jan. 27, 2025