A Study of Relationship Between Breast Cancer Mortality Rate and Human Development Index: Global Trend Analysis from 1990 to 2017

Female breast cancer is known as one of the top five cancers in terms of mortality. Regarding contradictory reports about the mortality trend of this cancer and its association with the socio-economic status of the world countries, we aimed at assessing the global trend of female breast cancer mortality rate and investigate the relationship between its mortality rate and development status.

The breast cancer Age Standardized Mortality Rate (ASMR) per 100,000 and Human Development Index (HDI) for 179 world countries were extracted, respectively from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) database, for the period 1990 to 2017. The marginal modeling methodology was employed to analyze the global trend of ASMR and examine the relationship between ASMR and HDI.

The results showed a slightly constant curve for the global trend of breast cancer ASMR from 1990 to 2017 (around 17 per 100,000). Moreover, it was indicated that the ASMR is strongly related to development status. While countries with higher levels of HDI have experienced a declining trend of breast cancer mortality rate, countries with lower HDI levels experienced an ascending trend at this period.

In general, the findings showed that mortality due to breast cancer is still a major health problem in total world countries. Hence, more efforts should be made to screen the patients in the early stages of the disease and promote the level of care, especially in countries with lower levels of economic development.