Socioeconomic Factors and Ninth Grade School Performance in Childhood Leukemia and CNS Tumor Survivors

BACKGROUND: Childhood cancer survivors can experience deficits in school performance in adolescence. Few studies have investigated how social and socioeconomic factors influence and modify school performance. This study investigates the hypothesis that social and parental socioeconomic factors influence ninth grade school performance in childhood leukemia and central nervous system (CNS) tumor survivors and that the effect is different from that in healthy peers. METHODS: We analyzed data from nationwide Danish registers on school grades for children who finished ninth grade during 2002–2015 in Denmark. Using a unique within-school matched design, we compared grades from childhood cancer survivors with grades from healthy peers. Social factors were maternal/paternal civil status, immigrant status, and country of origin. Parental socioeconomic factors were measured by education and income. The study consisted of 36 426 children, of whom 460 and 289 were leukemia and CNS tumor survivors, respectively. RESULTS: School grades varied considerably across social strata. However, the grades among CNS tumor survivors varied notably less in the following effect modifiers: parental educational attainment, income, and immigrant status. On the contrary, no significant effect modifiers were found among leukemia survivors as compared with healthy peers. CONCLUSION: There is a strong effect of social and parental socioeconomic factors on school performance in healthy adolescence in Denmark. The same pattern is seen in survivors of leukemia, but a different pattern is seen in survivors of CNS tumors. This finding suggests that impairment of school-related functions differ between leukemia and CNS tumor survivors. This study contributes to knowledge on learning in adolescence in childhood cancer survivors by investigating several social and socioeconomic effect modifiers with nationwide register data and a unique statistical method particularly suitable for comparing school grades. Improved insight could make it possible to identify high-risk groups that may need different means of help.