Author(s) :

Jack Baer.

Volume/Issue :

Abstract :

It is known that financial burden can have a large effect on patient outcomes during the course of the disease. However, there is a lack of research on how these costs vary between urban and rural residents. A recurrent topic found between the studies is that they have a compounding socioeconomic disadvantage. Rural residents already have a preexisting socioeconomic disadvantage, with their job type and lack of medical resources stemming from this inherent disadvantage. In the case of cancer, these preexisting factors stimulate a need for travel to undergo treatment. This results in additional travel, accommodation, and food costs. These out-of-pocket costs are exacerbated by rural patients lacking insurance from their job type. This paper analyzes five papers to examine how the total f inancial burden of cancer differs between rural and urban patients. Patients’ increased treatment costs, which stem from a rural patient’s socioeconomic disadvantage, lead to a financial burden, as well as a decrease in the patient’s socioeconomic status. Furthermore, there is no blanket solution to this problem, as pathways of financial burden vary by a region’s development. However, there are general ideas that can be applied, such as transportation infrastructure, aid systems, and education improvement, that could be beneficial. These would need to be varied depending on where they are implicated, and their viability in certain regions is questionable due to their political climate. Ultimately, the financial burden of rural patients is higher because of the compounding socioeconomic burden, and policies need to be implemented to rectify this disparity.