Abstract 4351: A neighborhood-wide association study (NWAS) in prostate cancer: A new methodologic approach

Background: Cancer results from complex interactions of multiple variables at biological, individual and social levels. However, comprehensive, empirical methods to assess social and neighborhood-level effects are limited. We propose a Neighborhood-Wide Association Study(NWAS), analogous to a genome-wide association study(GWAS), to comprehensively identify neighborhood signatures associated with disease. Methods: Pennsylvania State Cancer Registry data from 1995-2005 were linked to the 2000 U.S. Census data. In a successively more stringent multiphase approach, we evaluated the association between neighborhood exposures(n = 14,663, standard deviation adjusted census variables) and prostate cancer aggressiveness (n = 6,416 aggressive Stage>3/Gleason grade >7 cases vs. n = 70,670 non-aggressive Stage