[Socioeconomic Inequalities in Cancer Outcome in Japan]

The Japanese government set the target to "reduce health inequalities" in the second version of "Healthy Japan 21". However, it is not enough to monitor the socioeconomic inequalities in cancer. In England, National Health Service(NHS) targeted to "tackle the inequalities in cancer" since 2000. In this review, I introduced some researches for the socioeconomic inequalities in cancer in Japan. We monitored the area-level socioeconomic inequalities in mortality using vital statistics data in Japan using the areal-based deprivation index. Among total inequalities in all cause of death, inequalities in cancer death is the most contributed. Inequalities in lung cancer mortality were widest for both sexes, which is related to the inequalities in smoking rate. We also monitored socioeconomic inequalities in stage-specific incidence using population-based cancer registry. For most of cancer sites, higher late-stage incidence were observed in the more deprived area, which might be due to poor access to the cancer screening in those area. Socioeconomic inequalities in cancer survival were also observed, especially for the cancer sites which has favor prognosis. Although stage at diagnosis plays an important role in these socioeconomic inequalities, other factors such as co-morbidities are likely play a part. We need further study to understand the mechanism of inequalities in cancer using more clinically detail database in near future.