Cancer and Cancer Risk in South Australia: What Evidence for a Rural–Urban Health Differential?

Abstract

It is widely reported that the health status of rural Australians is worse than that of their urban counterparts. There is an apparent increasing gradient in mortality from urban to remote areas of Australia. However, this apparent gradient is not evident for all diseases. This paper seeks to answer the question: is there any difference in the cancer disease experience (incidence, survival and early detection) and cancer risk factors between residents of rural and urban South Australia. Cancer registry data indicate that overall, the incidence of cancer is similar in rural and urban South Australia. The findings on survival differentials are of concern. While overall survival rates are very similar in country and city, and this is encouraging, analysis of individual types of cancer raises some concerns. The registry reports that significant differences in survival were only measured for 10 cancers and for all of these rural residents experienced higher mortality rates.