Upper gastrointestinal cancers: Trends and determinants of location of death.

Background: Patients diagnosed with upper gastrointestinal cancers often require extensive end-of-life care. We sought to investigate social determinants of health associated with disparities in the location of death among patients who died of upper gastrointestinal cancers.

Methods: Patients who died between 2003 and 2020 from esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, hepatobiliary cancer, and pancreatic cancer were identified using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research database. Social determinants of health were assessed using the Social Vulnerability Index. Patients were categorized on the basis of location of death: inpatient hospital, home, nursing home, hospice, and outpatient medical facility/emergency department. Multivariable regression and mediation analyses defined the association of patient race as well as social determinants of health with location of death.

Results: Among 815,780 decedents (esophageal cancer: 15.3%; gastric cancer: 3.6%; hepatobiliary cancer: 36.6%; pancreatic cancer: 54.5%), most were male (60.8%), aged 55-74 years (52.3%), and White (89.1%). Most decedents died at home (55.7%), followed by inpatient hospital (24.8%), hospice (9.0%), nursing home (8.1%), and outpatient medical facility/emergency department (2.5%). During the study period, location of death shifted notably from inpatient hospital (36.8% to 21.3%) to home (45.8% to 56.3%). Residents of high Social Vulnerability Index areas were more likely to die at inpatient hospital compared with home (31.8% vs 24.3%) (P < .001). Black race (reference: White; odds ratio; 0.41, 95% confidence interval, 0.40-0.42) and social vulnerability (reference: low Social Vulnerability Index; odds ratio, 0.64, 95% confidence interval, 0.63-0.65) remained independently associated with lower odds of dying at home compared with an inpatient hospital. Notably, 65% of the overall race-based association with death at inpatient hospital was driven indirectly through social determinants of health.

Conclusion: Social determinants are important drivers of end-of-life care and impact the potential ability of patients with cancer to die at home.