I think you should be able to get your hands on a hard copy of this
Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 115, Number 1, January 2007 you can order it at the linked page
included in that issue
Quote:An Update on Cancer Cluster Activities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Beverly S. Kingsley, Karen L. Schmeichel, and Carol H. Rubin
National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Abstract
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues to be aware of the need for response to public concern as well as to state and local agency concern about cancer clusters. In 1990 the CDC published the "Guidelines for Investigating Clusters of Health Events,"in which a four-stage process was presented. This document has provided a framework that most state health departments have adopted, with modifications pertaining to their specific situations, available resources, and philosophy concerning disease clusters. The purpose of this present article is not to revise the CDC guidelines ; they retain their original usefulness and validity. However, in the past 15 years, multiple cluster studies as well as scientific and technologic developments have affected cluster science and response (improvements in cancer registries, a federal initiative in environmental public health tracking, refinement of biomarker technology, cluster identification using geographic information systems software, and the emergence of the Internet) . Thus, we offer an addendum for use with the original document.
~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~
Quote:Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) is a monthly journal of peer-reviewed research and news on the impact of the environment on human health. EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and its content is free online. Print issues are available by paid subscription.
farmer, I was going to search for that link, but it looks like ebeth has given you superior info.
I just googled something like....number of deaths cancer year united states
I was at a meeting today with some med types in the room and I alerted them to my information . We now have 3 people on the team. Im going to call the "Cancer cluster" place and see some reccomendations re: how to proceed
Our cancer cluster investigation is going along being conducted by volunteers. I have geostatistician who works for a mining company who is doing some variogramming and analyses by trend surface. (A trend surface, in my field is an equation of a surface under which all the data fits. The ideal trend surface has a look like a "German Helmet" and recognizes that the "kernel" effect is geometrically distribute throughout a map surface. What weve done is develop a series of "Wild ass guesses" as to which population effects may run together and correlate to cancer stats.
I was looking a that Non Hodgkins Lymphoma statmap beth, and it doesnt make a lot of sense. I looked at (eg) Maine. The largest cancer zone in Maine is Baxter State Park(Its the big red area in the center of Maine) Its a wilderness with a small population of Park Employees who, being stationed there by the US Govt, have a habit of moving around the US.
Also, I CAN see the relationship in that cancer and the locations in N Vermont. The areas in N Vermont are just South of the Thetford Asbestos mining district of Quebec. Vermont is downwind of asbestos particles.
Our initial analysis is showing that we have a 2500% greater cancer (brain/lung/pancretic) than would be predictred by CDC data. Now, were gonna rip that data apart (all by e-mail cause were all over the country) and do basic statistics.
Excellent! I'm hoping you'll come up with something solid.
Gotta go check out the links Beth provided. Interesting to look at Missouri knowing I grew up around nuclear missil silo's. I always wondered if there was any kinda cancer danger in that.
One of the problems with the state map is that the data are normalized per 100,000 population. Places like central Me and northern Vt with low populations will be artificially inflated in rate calculations by a single case of disease.
