Kidney Cancer in Rural Illinois: Lower Incidence Yet Higher Mortality Rates.

Objective: To determine if rural status was associated with kidney and renal pelvis cancer (KCa) incidence and mortality in Illinois while controlling for known KCa risk factors and access to care variables.

Materials And Methods: Age-adjusted KCa incidence rates from 1991 to 2010 were calculated from Illinois State Cancer Registry data. Age-adjusted KCa mortality rates were obtained from health statistics embedded within SEER*Stat.

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.

Manuscript title: Geospatial analysis of Cancer risk and residential proximity to coal mines in Illinois.

Background: Studies have indicated a population-level association between coal mining and cancer incidence and mortality, but few studies specifically examined residential proximity to this exposure using spatial analysis. We utilized a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) approach to perform spatial and statistical analyses to test two coal mining exposure variables and their associations with cancer incidence and mortality in Illinois--the fourth highest coal producing state in the United States.

Methods: Data included age-adjusted county-level cancer incidence and mortality for five cancers: all malignant, lung, colorectal, breast (female) and prostate.

Impact of county rurality and urologist density on urological cancer mortality in illinois.

Purpose: The urology work force is contracting at a time when service demand is increasing due to demographic changes, especially in rural areas. We investigated the impact of rural status and urologist density on kidney and renal pelvis, bladder and prostate cancer mortality at the county level in Illinois.

Materials And Methods: We stratified the 102 Illinois counties by 2003 RUCCs as urban (36, RUCCs 1 to 3) and rural (66, RUCCs 4 to 9).