Table 1.

Characteristics of Decedents by Race

	Non‐Hispanic White N = 85,589	African American N = 8,740	p‐Value	Hispanic N = 4,759	p‐Value	Asian N = 3,671	p‐Value
Mean Medicare expenditures (SD)	10,761 (12,349)	12,841 (14,230)	<.001	13,605 (15,381)	<.001	15,388 (17,471)	<.001
Mean age in years (SD)	77.9 (7.0)	76.3 (6.8)	<.001	76.9 (6.7)	<.001	77.9 (6.8)	<.001
Expenditure level (%)a
Low	27.0	18.8	<.001	13.9	<.001	3.5	<.001
Intermediate	50.8	45.1		46.3		39.6
High	22.2	36.2		39.9		56.9
Female (%)
No	52.6	51.5	0.06	53.2	0.45	56.1	<.001
Yes	47.4	48.5		46.8		43.9
Marital status (%)a
Married	53.0	35.1	<.001	48.4	<.001	62.6	<.001
Unmarried	42.3	60.1		46.5		33.8
Unknown	4.8	4.8		5.1		4.7
Metro (%)
Metro	80.4	87.7	<.001	91.4	<.001	95.9	<.001
Nonmetro/unknown	19.6	12.3		8.6		4.1
Income (%)a , b
<$33,000	20.2	53.6	<.001	33.8	<.001	17.6	<.001
$33,000–$39,999	16.2	15.1		15.7		10.6
$40,000–$49,999	20.7	16.0		21.0		19.5
$50,000–$62,999	20.0	8.8		16.1		22.4
≥$63,000	22.8	6.5		13.3		29.9
High school education or less (%)a , b
<30%	22.5	7.0	<.001	13.1	<.001	27.3	<.001
30–39%	16.1	8.3		11.5		18.0
40–49%	17.9	11.3		15.9		18.1
50–59%	18.6	20.2		17.7		16.9
≥60%	24.7	53.2		41.8		19.8
Medicaid (%)
No	86.6	58.8	<.001	50.6	<.001	46.6	<0.001
Yes	13.4	41.2		49.4		53.4
Comorbidity (%)
None	23.0	21.4	<.001	21.9	<.001	21.3	<0.001
1–2	40.6	36.4		38.6		44.1
More than 3	36.4	42.2		39.5		34.6
Disability status (%)
No	93.8	79.7	<.001	77.7	<.001	78.2	<.001
Yes	6.2	20.3		22.3		21.8
Tumor site (%)a
Breast	7.3	10.1	<.001	7.5	<.001	4.8	<.001
Prostate	6.8	10.7		8.6		4.8
Lung	42.0	39.4		30.5		37.9
Colorectal	14.2	16.8		17.8		15.3
Pancreas	7.0	6.8		8.1		8.9
Liver	2.0	2.4		6.4		11.6
Kidney	3.3	2.7		4.3		2.7
Skin	4.4	0.6		1.7		0.7
Hematological cancer	12.8	10.5		15.1		13.4
Stage IV at diagnosis (%)
Not stage IV	69.1	68.0	0.05	67.7	0.04	68.5	0.45
Stage IV	30.9	32.0		32.3		31.5
Multiple cancers (%)
No	87.7	88.1	0.24	89.8	<.001	91.3	<.001
Yes	12.3	11.9		10.2		8.7
Time since cancer diagnosisa
6 months–1 year	39.8	39.9	0.68	39.4	0.01	39.5	0.19
1–2 years	40.0	39.5		38.8		39.6
2–3 years	20.3	20.6		21.9		20.9

Note: A sample of 102,759 cancer decedents was identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)‐Medicare dataset. Non‐Hispanic whites were used as the reference group for the statistical analyses.

^aNumbers may not sum up to 100 due to rounding.

^bSEER‐Medicare provides census‐based estimates of median household income and percentage of adults with high school education or less at the zip code level.