We investigated the effects of socioeconomic, demographic and health-related indicators on the incidence of and survival from mouth, pharynx and larynx cancers diagnosed in 1994-2003 with follow-up through 2006 in Denmark using information from nationwide registers. The analyses were based on data on 3058 patients with mouth and pharynx cancer and 1799 with larynx cancer in a cohort of 3.22 million persons born between 1925 and 1973 and aged >or=30 years. The incidences of all the three cancers increased with decreasing socioeconomic position, measured as disposable income, work market affiliation, social class, housing tenure, cohabiting status and type of district. Similar differences in survival persisted for all 5 years observed. Immigrants had better survival from larynx cancer than native Danes. We could not determine the effects of differences in tobacco and alcohol consumption or their multiplicative interactions.