Population Structure Analyses Provide Insight into the Source Populations Underlying Rural Isolated Communities in Illinois.

We have previously hypothesized that relatively small and isolated rural communities may experience founder effects, defined as the genetic ramifications of small population sizes at the time of a community's establishment. To explore this, we used an Illumina Infinium Omni2.5Exome-8 chip to collect data from 157 individuals from four Illinois communities, three rural and one urban.

Rurality and Health in the United States: Do Our Measures and Methods Capture Our Intent?

Rural status in the United States can be objectively measured using multiple designations within different geographic extents, often considering both population density and proximity to urban areas. However, these measurements are often incomplete for assessing the relationship between rural status and health and are often inadequately considered in analysis. To address these limitations, we posit four recommendations: two recommendations to improve current measures by including additional factors and making measures continuous and two recommendations to improve regression analysis by considering rural status as a contextual factor in multilevel modeling and as a variable in conjunction with socioeconomic factors derived through principal component analysis.

Utility and Generalizability of Multistate, Population-Based Cancer Registry Data for Rural Cancer Surveillance Research in the United States.

More than 46 million Americans live in rural areas, but rural populations remain relatively understudied in cancer disparities research. However, several analyses of multistate cancer registry data that describe the rural cancer incidence burden have been recently published. In light of this, our article aims to characterize the utility and generalizability of multistate, population-based cancer registry datasets for rural cancer surveillance research.

Rural-Urban Disparities in Stage of Diagnosis Among Cancers With Preventive Opportunities.

Introduction: Despite having lower overall incidence rates, rural populations tend to have higher cancer mortality rates. Rural populations often have higher rates of cancers with primary and secondary prevention modalities. However, there is limited research on rural-urban differences in incidence by stage.

Rural-Urban Differences in Cancer Incidence and Trends in the United States.

Cancer incidence and mortality rates in the United States are declining, but this decrease may not be observed in rural areas where residents are more likely to live in poverty, smoke, and forego cancer screening. However, there is limited research exploring national rural-urban differences in cancer incidence and trends. We analyzed data from the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries' public use dataset, which includes population-based cancer incidence data from 46 states.

Engaging rural communities in genetic research: challenges and opportunities.

Statistical analyses of health and disease in rural communities is frequently limited by low sample counts. Still, some studies indicate increased risk for some diseases even after adjustment for known risk factors. It has been hypothesized that the context of community formation in rural areas facilitates the propagation of genetic founder effects-potentially impacting disease susceptibility.

Does where you live play an important role in cancer incidence in the U.S.?

Some studies have shown disproportionate cancer incidence burden in rural areas which may be attributable partly due to the use of 'rural' as a generic term implying homogeneity of risk/protective factors across wide geographic spans. Counties in SEER 18 registries (years 2001-2011) were classified by their Rural-Urban Continuum Code (RUCC) and aggregated into urban, adjacent rural, and non-adjacent rural and were also aggregated into 3 regions: North, South, and West. Two-way ANCOVA was performed with region and RUCC as factors with adjustment for rates of common risk factors obtained from the County Health Rankings (2013).

Intrastate Variations in Rural Cancer Risk and Incidence: An Illinois Case Study.

Context: Although rural-urban cancer disparities have been explored with some depth, disparities within seemingly homogeneous rural areas have received limited attention. However, exploration of intrarural cancer incidence may have important public health implications for risk assessment, cancer control, and resource allocation.

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore intrastate rural cancer risk and incidence differences within Illinois.