ArticleJournal of cancer policy2026
Geographic disparities in access to oncologists and association with cancer outcomes in the United States.
Article in Journal of cancer policy, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cancer Risk Factors, Screening, and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Deprivation Across the U.S. Urban-to-Frontier Continuum.Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Monographs · 2026Article
- Patient Experience of Adrenocortical Carcinoma: Views from a Patient, His Physician and a Patient Association.Advances in therapy · 2026Article
- Trends and disparities in thyroid cancer related mortality from 1999 to 2023: a CDC WONDER database analysis.BMC endocrine disorders · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAccess to oncologists is crucial to quality cancer care. We aimed to assess the geospatial distribution of oncologists in the United States and its association with cancer mortality.
methodsWe used county-level oncologist data from the 2025 Doctors and Clinicians national downloadable file and county-level cancer outcome data from the 2018-2022 State Cancer Profiles. We assessed urban-rural differences in the distribution of oncologists in the United States and used Local Moran's I to identify clusters of high and low oncologist density and cancer mortality rates. We classified counties using the 2023 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC) with RUCC 1-3 as urban and RUCC 4-9 as rural.
results13,332 oncologists were identified nationwide. The median oncologist density per 100,000 population was 6.0 in urban counties and 0.0 in rural counties (p-value <0.001). The median age-adjusted cancer mortality rate per 100,000 population was 156.1 in urban counties and 166.8 in rural counties (p-value <0.001). Clusters of low oncologist density were observed in the South.
conclusionThere are significant geospatial differences in oncologist accessibility and cancer outcomes. Targeted interventions are necessary to ensure that rural areas maintain access to oncology care.
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