A Survey of Cancer Risk Behaviors, Beliefs, and Social Drivers of Health in New Hampshire and Vermont

Abstract

Compared with urban areas, rural areas have higher cancer mortality and have experienced substantially smaller declines in cancer incidence in recent years. In a New Hampshire (NH) and Vermont (VT) survey, we explored the roles of rurality and educational attainment on cancer risk behaviors, beliefs, and other social drivers of health. In February-March 2022, two survey panels in NH and VT were sent an online questionnaire. Responses were analyzed by rurality and educational attainment. Respondents (N = 1,717, 22%) mostly lived in rural areas (55%); 45% of rural and 25% of urban residents had high school education or less and this difference was statistically significant. After adjustment for rurality, lower educational attainment was associated with smoking, difficulty paying for basic necessities, greater financial difficulty during the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling to pay for gas (P < 0.01), fatalistic attitudes toward cancer prevention, and susceptibility to information overload about cancer prevention. Among the 33% of respondents who delayed getting medical care in the past year, this was more often due to lack of transportation in those with lower educational attainment (21% vs. 3%, P = 0.02 adjusted for rurality) and more often due to concerns about catching COVID-19 among urban than rural residents (52% vs. 21%; P < 0.001 adjusted for education). In conclusion, in NH/VT, smoking, financial hardship, and beliefs about cancer prevention are independently associated with lower educational attainment but not rural residence. These findings have implications for the design of interventions to address cancer risk in rural areas.

Significance: In NH and VT, the finding that some associations between cancer risk factors and rural residence are more closely tied to educational attainment than rurality suggest that the design of interventions to address cancer risk should take educational attainment into account.

FIGURE 1

NH and VT maps showing rural and urban regions. Rural regions are defined using RUCA codes 4–10 and urban using RUCA 1–3.

FIGURE 2

Cancer risk factors by rurality (rural vs. urban) and educational attainment [≤ high school (HS) vs. > HS] among 1,717 NH and VT residents surveyed in February–March 2022.

FIGURE 3

Cancer beliefs by rurality (rural vs. urban) and educational attainment [≤ high school (HS) vs. > HS] among 1,717 NH and VT residents surveyed in February–March 2022.

FIGURE 4

Social determinants of health and influence of COVID-19 pandemic by rurality (rural vs. urban) and educational attainment [≤ high school (HS) vs. > HS] among 1,717 NH and VT residents surveyed in February–March 2022. A, Financial and food. B, Travel. C, Medical care.