Population Science & Cancer Control
The Division of Population Science & Cancer Control (PSCC) is new at NVCI. The chief is Estevan Flores, Ph.D., a sociologist with expertise in cancer health disparities and intervention research. The Division’s goal is to build a multidisciplinary, comprehensive prevention/cancer control research unit that will directly address the cancers that currently pose serious health problems for Nevadans.
CANCER IN THE US: Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S., behind heart disease.
- The leading type of cancer deaths are lung and bronchus cancer for 2007 (estimated), for both men (31%) and women (26%).
- The second leading death due to cancer is for both prostate and colorectal cancer for men (9%), while breast cancer is second for women (15%).
The good news is that cancer death rates have been declining since about 1990.
- There are now more than 10 million U.S. cancer survivors.
This number will continue to increase.
CANCER IN NEVADA:
- From 1999-2003 there were 47,808 cancers reported in the state with 18,821 cancer deaths. The rate for incidence is 483.0/100,000 and for mortality is 200.
- The data for 1999-2003 indicate that lung and bronchus cancers lead in both incidence per 100,000 (79.7) and mortality (60.9) and accounted for 31.3% of cancer mortality during this period.
- In 2003, lung cancer deaths to women in Nevada ranked 3rd worst in the U.S.
- For men, prostate cancer is second in incidence at 150.1, while breast cancer incidence is second for women at 141.8. The same pattern holds for mortality rates for both men and women.
- There are an estimated 60,000 cancer survivors in Nevada.
Again, the good news is that this number will be increasing over time as more people survive cancer and cancer fast becomes a chronic disease. Of course, with healthier lifestyles and stronger tobacco control measures, we can prevent cancer altogether.
THE PSCC APPROACH: Multiple sources of population and cancer data allow us to identify those cancers most problematic to Nevadans. With this data we will plan research and interventions that will help us
- overcome barriers to cancer screening
- increase detection rates and reduce cancer risks
- address environmental factors.
Through innovative community based prevention research in partnership with our state of the art clinical treatment and research, we will, over the next decade, reduce the suffering and death due to cancer.
We will also provide for state of the art survivorship as we research the socio-cultural, psychological, economic and other personal needs of survivors and their families. In addition, we will begin to research the area of integrative/holistic medicine and its potential for NVCI.
NEW HIRES: We are targeting three professional hires for 2008:
- an epidemiologist
- a behavioral scientist
- a cancer survivorship researcher.
These scientists, with the chief, will lead the prevention/cancer control effort along with graduate and undergraduate research assistants.
OUTREACH AND EDUCATION (O and E) OFFICE: The O and E staff will work seamlessly with the office of Population Science and Cancer Control as we address Nevada cancer health disparities through strategic cancer control research and effective and timely O and E outreach.
POPULATION GENETICS: We are studying, through PI Dr. David Ward, genetic variation in different ethnic groups and how these variations affect susceptibility to cancer, cardiovascular disease and other diseases which have a genetic component to their etiology. While specific genetic mutations and/or single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are well known causes of disease in the Caucasian population, the extent to which these or other genetic variations cause disease in other ethnic groups, such as African American, Hispanic and Asian Americans, is far less understood.
Cancer Registry
The Nevada Cancer Institutes' Cancer Registry, headed by Karen L. Power, M.P.H., CTR, gathers comprehensive, timely, and accurate data on patients that are diagnosed and/or treated at the Institute for cancer. Information from the Cancer Registry can be used in research and epidemiologic studies of cancer to help us understand the etiology of this disease.
Nevada residents benefit from the Cancer Registry data because our research will lead to improved diagnostics and treatment strategies. NVCI researchers work collaboratively with government cancer data researchers and population scientists to monitor cancer trends in Nevada.
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