Epidemiology and Genetics Research

Description

Years

Long Island Breast Cancer Project

• Examines geographic disparities in breast cancer incidence and mortality through more than 10 studies that include human population studies as well as laboratory research.
• Develops a health-related Geographic Information System (GIS) for Long Island (near completion).This GIS will provide researchers with a new tool to investigate relationships between breast cancer and the environment and to estimate exposures to environmental contamination.

1999-2004

Behavioral Research

Description

Years

Centers for Population Health and Health Disparities

• Supports 4-5 Centers (P50s) in collaboration with other ICs.
• Encourages innovative research leading to an understanding of and reduction in cancer health disparities.
• Facilitates reciprocal collaboration among biomedical scientists, social scientists, and affected communities.
• Each Center conducts three related research projects (R01) that focus on the complex interactions of the social and physical environment, mediating behavioral factors, and biologic pathways that determine health and disease.

2003-2007

Digital Divide Pilot Projects

• Tests strategies to increase cancer communications (particularly computer and Internet-based) in underserved communities.
• Collaborates with the Cancer Information Service (CIS), regional cancer control organizations, and the private sector.

1999-2000

Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS)

• Collects nationally representative data every 2 years about the American public's need for, access to, and use of cancer-related information.
• Oversamples minority populations.
• Tracks national public access to health information and provides data on changing patterns, needs, and opportunities in cancer prevention, screening, treatment, and support.
• Examines preferred information channels, sources, and information needs of diverse audiences and yields data on perceptions about cancer risks related to health hazards.

2002

Survivorship

Description

Years

Center for Psycho-Oncology Research Specialized Center (P50) Project

• Conducts biomedical, behavioral, psychological, and social research on the interrelationships among biological processes, cognition, emotion, and physical health among ethno-culturally diverse survivors of breast, prostate, and AIDS-related cervical cancer.
• Supports 4 R01-level clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of group-based Cognitive Behavioral Stress Management (CBSM) interventions, and a hormonal treatment to ameliorate adverse consequences of cancer and its treatment among ethno-culturally diverse cancer survivors.
• Assesses whether CBSM interventions can modulate the output of the sympathetic nervous system, the Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenal axis, and Hypothalamic Pituitary Gonadal hormones; and normalize immunologic status in different populations.
• Supports pilot studies of CBSM intervention effects in individuals with other cancers, such as malignant melanoma.
• Develops and tests Spanish translations of interventions for breast and prostate cancer patients.

1999-2003

Minority and Underserved Cancer Survivors Supplement

• Supports 6 pilot projects (1-year duration each) that examine survivorship issues among minority and underserved patients who have returned to their communities after completion of initial treatment, and/or their family members.
• Fosters collaborations between cancer centers and community organizations.

2001

Overcoming Barriers to Treatment Adherence In Minorities and Persons Living in Poverty

• Supports 2 projects that examine issues related to adherence to prescribed medical and healthy-lifestyle regimens among diverse ethnic and/or low-income populations.

2001-2005

Long Term Cancer Survivors Research Initiative

• Supports 15 research grants examining questions related to physiological or psychosocial outcomes, and/or interventions that may promote positive outcomes, among long-term (5 years posttreatment) cancer survivors.
• Examines the relationship between treatment and late effects among ethno-culturally diverse long-term cancer survivors (8 of 15 projects funded under this initiative).

1998-2003

Applied Research

Description

Years

Cancer Care Outcomes Research and Surveillance Consortium (CanCORS)

• Establishes a national consortium of competitively selected research teams focusing on colorectal and lung cancers to collaborate on large observational cohort studies of newly diagnosed cancer patients.
• Analyzes disparities in the delivery of quality cancer care.
• Examines factors such as the clinical or nonclinical characteristics of patients; provider knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and health system factors that also may be related to quality of cancer care.

2001-2005

Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium

• Evaluates performance of mammography services in community settings with diverse populations by linking data on mammography practice to data on cancer outcomes in either cancer registries or pathology laboratories.
• Expands monitoring of disparities in mammography-related outcomes through a large sample drawn from diverse geographic and practice settings.
• Identifies health disparities as a special focus of investigation.
• Assesses the understanding of breast cancer screening practices in the United States through an assessment of the accuracy, cost, and quality of screening programs and estimates the quantitative population effect of mammography screening on various outcomes.

1994-2001

HMO Cancer Research Network (CRN)

• Develops a population laboratory, blending diverse populations and research expertise of various HMO plans.
• Encourages the expansion of collaborative cancer research among health care provider organizations that are oriented to community care and have access to large, stable, and diverse patient populations.
• Takes advantage of existing integrated databases that can provide patient-level information.
• Six plans have 20% or more non-white racial/ethnic enrollees and four of these have SEER cancer registries with rapid ascertainment systems.
• Studies late-stage breast and invasive cervical cancer patients to identify factors that affect advanced disease.

1999-2002

Surveillance Research

Description

Years

Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program

• Maintains 18 cancer registries, covering 26% of the U.S. population (23% of the African-American, 40% of the Hispanic, 45% of the American Indian/Alaska Native [AI/AN], and 53% of the Asian/Pacific Islander populations in the U.S.).
• Supports new registries to increase the oversampling of minority/ethnic groups, rural populations, and states with high cancer mortality.
• Enhances data systems to improve racial/ethnic classification and to measure cancer disparities by socioeconomic factors through linkage with other databases.
• Collaborates with other registries and organizations to set standards; improve coding systems; and interpret, report, and disseminate data.
• Provides access to SEER data and common statistical analyses through a public Web site(http://seer.cancer.gov).
• Supports efforts to improve the methods for derivation of statistics, such as cancer prevalence and survival, to increase their usability and meaningfulness.

Annual

The Network for Cancer Control Research Among American Indian/Alaska Native Populations

• Exchanges information on cancer control research; improves community links to the NCI, CIS, and ACS.
• Increases the number of AI/AN researchers, scientists, and medical students involved in cancer control activities in AI/AN communities.
• Develops curricula and mentors students in the Native Researchers' Cancer Control Training Program, increasing the research skills of young Native investigators.
• Convenes national conferences on "Cancer in Indian Country."
• Established the Native CIRCLE:Cancer Information Resource Center and Learning Exchange for individuals involved in the education, care, and treatment of AI/AN.

Annual

• Social determinants of health
• Policy and social justice
• Health care access and utilization
• Immigrant populations

• Lifestyle risk factors for hormone-dependent cancers
• Behavioral genetics and obesity risk
• Obesity policies in school environment
  

• Biopsychosocial determinants of cancer survivorship disparities
• Social ecological model of health behavior change
• Policies affecting outcomes in cancer survivors
• Social justice
  

• Patient-clinician communication, patient-centered communication
• Patient experiences with care, patient satisfaction, patient-centered care
• Information seeking
• Patient empowerment/participation in care
• Health-related quality of life and symptoms

• Behavioral medicine
• Aging
• Real-time measures and health informatics

• Cancer survivorship outcomes, i.e., the medical late- and long term effects of cancer, follow-up care, and surveillance
• Health behaviors

• Diet, weight, and physical activity
• Breast cancer screening and treatment

• Tobacco control and prevention for women and girls
• Tobacco use in developing (low- and middle-income) nations, especially among women and girls

• Social determinants of health and health care disparities
• Cancer screening
• Cancer control surveillance systems

• Remedying health disparities in breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers
• Dissemination of evidence-based cancer screening interventions
  

• Implications of health disparities for cost-effectiveness analysis of cancer control interventions
• Relationship between health care delivery organizational structure and patterns of care

• Cancer screening

• Health-related quality of life in patients with cancer and cancer survivors
• Clinical quality performance measurement and improvement
• Provider surveys of the use of evidence-based interventions in cancer prevention, early detection, and treatment

• Developing health objectives
• Measuring health disparities
• Monitoring health outcomes

• Functional genomics
• Aberrant transcriptome
• Pharmacogenomics
• Carcinogenesis
• Impact of prescreening, in the absence of intervention strategies, on life of children and young adults

• Surveillance research on measures of social and economic differences in cancer patterns (incidence, mortality, survival, outcomes)

• Occupational and environmental risks for cancer
• Social determinants of health
• Epidemiology of prostate cancer

• Youth and young adult tobacco cessation
• Tobacco and health disparities research
• Building research capacity and career development training
• Unemployed, low socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic groups, and women

• Impact of reducing health disparities on population incidence and mortality trends
• Geographic health disparities

• Informed and shared decision-making
• Risk perception and communication
• Palliative and end-of-life care
• Asian American health disparities

• Health communication
• Public health informatics
• Patient-centered support environments

• Cancer survivorship among minority and medically underserved individuals
• Long-term side effects of cancer and treatment
• Mental health needs of the individual and family

• Risk factor monitoring, with an emphasis on diet, weight, and physical activity

• Using surveillance, statistical, and epidemiologic research methods to monitor trends in tobacco use
• Analyzing differences in predictors and patterns of cancer-related risk factors

• Disparities in cancer incidence and survival
• Gene-environment interactions in breast and prostate cancer
• Tumor biology microenvironment

• Mechanisms and interactions of psychosocial and behavioral factors, neural and endocrine function, and immune system processes

• Socioeconomic differences in health
• Ethnic and cultural differences in health
• Use of SEER data in disparities research

• Methodology
• Statistics

• Physical activity intervention design and selection of behavioral and physiological outcomes and psychosocial mediators
• Exercise effects on mental health and smoking cessation
• Psychosocial issues and morbid obesity

• Cancer screening and followup of abnormal screening results
• Health literacy and patient-provider communication
• Low-income (SES) groups, ethnic minority women

• Disparities in cancer incidence and survival
• Differences in stage at diagnosis
• Access to care

• Energy balance and cancer risk
• Gene-nutrient interactions and cancer risk

• Epidemiologic and genetics research
• Gene-environment interactions
• Risk factors

• Health services research
• Risk factors
• Access to health care

• Social determinants of health
• Socio-economic status and health disparities
• Use of geographic analysis methods in disparities research
• Use of SEER data in disparities research

• Cancer rates in Native American populations

• Cancer screening implementation through Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs)
• Delivery and quality of breast cancer screening

• Geo-spatial modeling, analysis, and visualization
• Environmental exposures
• Built environment
• Contextual environments
• Disease patterns

• Methods of cancer surveillance among indigenous populations
• Ethnic and cultural differences in cancer risks
• Geographic variations in cancer risks