This project aims at investigating the role of socio-economic disparities on cancer burden in Italy. Aggregated data will be used for a spatio-temporal analysis. The main problems encountered in using aggregated data are, on one hand, the measure of area socio economic status and, on the other hand, the possibility of controlling the statistical analysis for area-specific characteristic, such as environmental exposures, lifestyle factors, differences in medical care and presence of screening programs. These factors are likely to make the extent of cancer burden heterogeneously distributed across the areas. Innovative statistical methods need to be developed to monitor and study socio-economic disparities on cancer outcomes. In a multilevel hierarchical model, area and individual level socio-economic data will be integrated. Finally, a Bayesian spatio-temporal model for aggregated disease count data will be developed in order to, among other features, correct for spatial confounding.