Development of Prostate Cancer Survey Measures for African American Urban Men

摘要

The purpose of the Minority Population Focussed Training Program was to prepare the trainee to conduct research in the area of excess burden of prostate cancer among African American men, with excess burden defined as greater incidence, later stage at diagnosis, less access to state of the art treatment, or excess mortality from the disease. The goals were to examine results from previous research, and to develop new research. Refining measures of prostate cancer burden was a special focus of this work. During the six month project, the trainee reviewed 120 studies and task force reports on prostate cancer. Three sources of data on prostate cancer were obtained for analyses: the SEER Cancer Incidence data, the State of Maryland Cancer Registry data, and zip code%specific rates for Baltimore City. The major findings focussed on the wide variation in prostate cancer burden among African Americans, and the need to analyze cancer patterns by combining data from a variety of sources. One unanswered question from existing research is the extent to which socioeconomic disadvantage can explain some of these racial differences in cancer burden. The need for geographically based analyses led the trainee to develop and submit proposals for large scale projects examining prostate burden among Maryland men, using GIS techniques to link Registry data with environmental, social and health care data.