A Neighborhood-Wide Association Study (Nwas) In Prostate Cancer: A New Methodologic Approach

Background: Cancer results from complex interactions of multiple variables at biological, individual and social levels. However, comprehensive, empirical methods to assess social and neighborhood-level effects are limited. We propose a Neighborhood-Wide Association Study(NWAS), analogous to a genome-wide association study(GWAS), to comprehensively identify neighborhood signatures associated with disease. Methods: Pennsylvania State Cancer Registry data from 1995-2005 were linked to the 2000 U.S. Census data. In a successively more stringent multiphase approach, we evaluated the association between neighborhood exposures(n = 14,663, standard deviation adjusted census variables) and prostate cancer aggressiveness (n = 6,416 aggressive Stageu003e3/Gleason grade u003e7 cases vs. n = 70,670 non-aggressive Stage Results: From 14,663 census variables, 17 variables that were most significantly associated with prostate cancer aggressiveness were identified. The top two hits related to transportation (OR = 1.05;CI = 1.001-1.09) and poverty (OR = 1.07;CI = 1.01-1.12). Significant associations between prostate cancer and income, housing, employment, and immigration were also found. Conclusions: This NWAS methodology addresses gaps in neighborhood and cancer research by proposing a standardized, agnostic evaluation of neighborhood using readily accessible data from the U.S. Census. This approach has implications for health disparities research and can be applied broadly to large-scale, public health data. Citation Format: Shannon Lynch, Nandita Mitra, Michelle Ross, Craig Newcomb, Karl Daily, Tara Jackson, Charnita Zeigler-Johnson, Harold Riethman, Charles Branas, Timothy Rebbeck. A neighborhood-wide association study (NWAS) in prostate cancer: A new methodologic approach. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 4351.