Influence of neighborhood social and natural environment on prostate tumor histology in a cohort of male health professionals

Adverse neighborhood social and natural (greenspace) environments may contribute to prostate cancer (CaP) etiology, but mechanisms are unclear. We examined associations between neighborhood environment and prostate intratumoral inflammation in 967 men diagnosed with CaP with available tissue from 1986-2009 in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Exposures were linked to work or residential addresses in 1988. We estimated indices of neighborhood socioeconomic status (nSES) and segregation (Index of Concentration at Extremes (ICE)) using Census tract-level data. Surrounding greenness was estimated using seasonal averaged Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Surgical tissue underwent pathological review for acute and chronic inflammation, corpora amylacea, and focal atrophic lesions. Adjusted odds ratios (aOR) for inflammation (ordinal) and focal atrophy (binary) were estimated using logistic regression. No associations were observed for acute or chronic inflammation. Each IQR increase in NDVI within 1230m (aOR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.59, 0.93), ICE-income (aOR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.61, 1.04) and ICE-race/income (aOR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.63, 0.99) was associated with lower postatrophic hyperplasia. IQR increases in nSES (aOR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.57, 1.02) and ICE-race/income (aOR: 0.73, 95% CI: 0.54, 0.99) were associated with lower tumor corpora amylacea. Histopathological inflammatory features of prostate tumors may be influenced by neighborhood