Dorothy Dulko, PhD, on Social Determinants of Developing Colorectal Cancer

To continue recognition of Colorectal Cancer Awareness month, CancerNetwork® sat down with Dorothy Dulko, PhD, APRN-C, AOCNP, WHNP-BC, OB/GYN-NP, CCRP, faculty member for Walden University’s Master of Science in Nursing program, to discuss factors that go into determining cancer disparities.

“One of the most important pieces when describing disparities is something called social determinants of health,” Dulko said. “Some of these social determinants [include] how we live, where we are born, where we work, where we play, where we worship, and our age.”

Dulko went on to say that rates of colorectal cancer, as well as lung and cervical cancers, are higher in places like rural Appalachia as compared with urban areas in the same region. And this, as well as other health disparities, are attributable to patient education levels. In addition, patients with more financial support tend to have better outcomes with their disease as compared with their counterparts with less financial support.

This segment comes from the CancerNetwork® portion of the MJH Life Sciences™ Medical World News®, airing daily on all MJH Life Sciences™ channels.