Health insurance and neighborhood poverty as mediators of racial disparities in advanced disease stage at diagnosis and nonreceipt of surgery for women with breast cancer.

Background: In our recent study, advanced disease stage and nonreceipt of surgery were the most important mediators of the racial disparity in breast cancer survival. The purpose of this study was to quantify the racial disparity in these two intermediate outcomes and investigate mediation by the more proximal mediators of insurance status and neighborhood poverty.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White women diagnosed with first primary invasive breast cancer in Florida between 2004 and 2015.