Multiplicative disadvantage of being an unmarried and inadequately insured woman living in poverty with colon cancer: historical cohort exploration in California

Table 1 Demographic, socioeconomic and clinical characteristics of married and unmarried women diagnosed with colon cancer in California between 1996 and 2000

	Married	No. (%)	Unmarried	No. (%)
Age at diagnosis, ^* y
<65	388	40.1	271	20.1
65–80	458	47.3	593	43.9
>80	122	12.6	487	36.0
Neighborhood poverty prevalence, ^† %
<5	391	40.3	376	27.0
5 – 29	317	32.7	458	33.7
≥30^‡	260	27.0	517	39.3
Primary health insurers ^†
Private	510	50.1	482	39.5
Medicare	364	41.6	732	46.4
Medicaid	44	3.9	68	7.0
Uninsured	50	4.4	69	7.1
Stage at diagnosis
II	409	43.5	569	40.9
III	318	32.5	417	31.5
IV	241	24.0	365	27.6
Tumor grade
I	72	7.8	87	6.5
II	597	65.0	793	63.6
III or IV	247	27.2	376	29.9
Missing data	52	5.4	95	7.0

Notes. Prevalence estimates (%) were directly age-adjusted using this study’s population of women as the standard.
^*p < .05 marital group difference (χ² test).
^†p < .05 age-adjusted marital group difference (Mantel-Haenszel χ² test).
^‡Median annual family income for married ($23,450) and unmarried ($22,325) subsamples of women; median test [29] χ² (1, N = 777) = 4.12, p < .05.

ISSN: 1472-6874