Nationally, the risk of dying from most cancers is falling thanks to improvements in screening, diagnostics and treatment. But new research shows stark health inequalities still exist in England when it comes to cancer care. The study found that people who live in the poorest parts of England have more than a 70% higher risk of dying from cancer compared with those who live in more affluent areas.
To conduct their study, the researchers analysed data from the Office for National Statistics on the ten cancers that caused the most deaths between 2002-2019 across 314 districts of England. The postcode at the time of a person’s death was used to assign each cancer death with a district.
