Household income and risk‐of‐poverty of parents of long‐term childhood cancer survivors
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AbstractBackgroundTaking care of children diagnosed with cancer affects parents’ professional life and may place the family at risk‐of‐poverty. We aimed to (i) compare the household income and risk‐of‐poverty of parents of childhood cancer survivors (CCS) to parents of the general population, and (ii) identify sociodemographic and cancer‐related factors associated with risk‐of‐poverty.MethodsAs part of the Swiss Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, we sent a questionnaire to parents of CCS aged 5–15 years, who survived ≥5 years after diagnosis. Information on parents of the general population came from the Swiss Household Panel (parents with ≥1 child aged 5–15 years). Risk‐of‐poverty was defined as having a monthly household income of <4,500 Swiss Francs (CHF) for single parents and <6,000 CHF for parent‐couples. We used logistic regression to identify factors associated with risk‐of‐poverty.ResultsWe included parents of 383 CCS and 769 control parent households. Parent‐couples of CCS had a lower household income (Ptrend < 0.001) and were at higher risk‐of‐poverty (30.4% vs. 19.3%, P = 0.001) compared to control parent‐couples. Household income and risk‐of‐poverty of single parents of CCS was similar to control single parents. Parents of CCS were at higher risk‐of‐poverty if they had only standard education (ORmother = 3.77 [where OR is odds ratio], confidence interval [CI]: 1.61–8.82; ORfather = 8.59, CI: 4.16–17.72) and were from the German language region (OR = 1.99, CI: 1.13–3.50). We found no cancer‐related risk factors.ConclusionParents of long‐term CCS reported lower household income and higher risk‐of‐poverty than control parents. Support strategies may be developed to mitigate parents’ risk‐of‐poverty in the long term, particularly among parents with lower education.
