Title:
Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET) (U01) (Reissued RFA)

Contact:

Eric J. Feuer, Ph.D.
Statistical Research and Applications Branch,
Surveillance Research Program
Telephone 301-496-5029
E-mail: rf41u@nih.gov

Objective of Project:

This initiative will fund simulation and other modeling techniques to describe the impact of interventions (i.e. primary prevention, screening, and treatment) in population-based settings. The goal of this research is to help: (1) answer the "why" questions in the analysis of observed cancer incidence and mortality trends, (2) determine if recommended interventions are having their expected population impact, (3) predict the potential of new interventions on national trends, and (4) optimal cancer control planning. CISNET addresses issues which are responsive to: challenges due to the increasing pace of technology (i.e. providing short term answers while Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT's) are still ongoing), emerging questions while they are still being debated in the policy forum, translating RCT evidence to the population setting, and providing estimates of quantities that will never be derived from RCT's.

Description of Project:

While the original issuance focused on Discovery (development of basic mathmatical and statistical relationships necessary for the development of multi-cohort models) and Development (data sources and realistic scenarios to evaluate past intervention impact in population settings and project future impact), the reissue will continue with the Development phase and move on to Delivery (synthesis of relevant scenarios for informing policy decisions and cancer control planning and implementation). Projects will focus on models describing the population impact of dissemination of cancer control interventions as well as other factors on observed national incidence and mortality trends. In addition the efforts can include modeling the potential impact of a new interventions on future national trends, and/or determining the impact of targeted cancer control interventions on population outcome. This first round of funding for this issuance will be limited to modeling proposals for prostate, colorectal, and breast cancer. The cooperative agreement mechanism will allow the development of site-specific working groups which will: (1) facilitate comparative analyses, (2) allow modeling groups access to a broader array of data resources and multidisciplinary expertise, (3) provide a forum for discussions of validation and other methodologic issues. In addition to modeling grants, applications will also be accepted for coordinating centers for all four cancer sites (lung, prostate, breast, and colorectal cancer). Coordinating centers will: (1) formulate, prioritize, and coordinate work on group initiated and other questions (including outside requests), (2) negotiate common requests for outside data sources, (3) build consensus and coordinating critical evaluation of disparate results and (4) coordinate synthesis papers and group responses bringing together disparate information to inform policy makers. For a summary of currently funded CISNET projects from the original issuance see http://cisnet.cancer.gov