• Rebecca M Schwartz, Kristin G Bevilacqua, Naomi Alpert, Bian Liu, Kavita V Dharmarajan, Katherine A Ornstein, and Emanuela Taioli.
• Northwell Health Department of Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology and Prevention, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Great Neck, New York.
• J Palliat Med. 2020 Apr 1; 23 (4): 498505498-505.

AbstractBackground: Demographic and contextual factors are associated with quality of life (QoL) in older adults and prediagnosis QoL among older adults has important implications for supportive care in older cancer patients. Objective: To examine whether lower educational attainment is associated with poorer QoL among community dwelling older adults just before their diagnosis of lung cancer in a nationally representative sample. Design: This study used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare Health Outcomes Survey (MHOS) dataset, which provides cancer registry data linked with survey data for Medicare Advantage enrollees. Subjects: Adults 65 years and older at time of diagnosis with first or only primary lung cancer and with at least one survey before their cancer diagnosis. Measurements: Level of education attained was categorized as less than high school (

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