Spatial distribution of breast cancer mortality: Socioeconomic disparities and access to treatment in the state of Parana, Brazil

INTRODUCTION: Breast cancer remains an important public health problem that is responsible for high morbidity and mortality rates, especially in developing countries. OBJECTIVE: To analyze the socioeconomic and access disparities related to breast cancer mortality in 399 cities in the state of Parana, Brazil. METHODS: Ecological, descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study based on secondary data from the Mortality Information System from 2009 to 2012 in the state of Parana. Breast cancer mortality rate was calculated considering the mortality cases and women population of each municipality, both based on women older than 20 years old. Moran global and local analyses were used to verify the presence of spatial autocorrelation and spatial regression modeling (Spatial Lag—SAR) with the purpose of analyzing the association between socioeconomic indicators, access and mortality rates for breast cancer. RESULTS: Significant positive spatial autocorrelation was found for breast cancer mortality rates (I = 0.5432, p = 0.001). In the spatial regression analysis, the model explained 61% of the variance of the mortality rates for breast cancer. The mortality rate for breast cancer was negatively associated with the illiteracy rate (Coefficient = -0.0279) and positively associated with the access index (Coefficient = 12.9525). CONCLUSION: The lower illiteracy rate has not been sufficient to reduce the specific mortality rate by breast cancer, and the higher the score of accessibility to cancer services, the higher the specific mortality due to breast cancer. The results show that in the state of Parana, the problem is not related to a lack of education of the patients or the distance walked, but rather with the organization of services. These conclusions have important political implications on the organization and quality of the services provided for the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer in the state of Parana.