Attitudes Toward Breast Cancer Genetic Testing in Five Special Population Groups.

Purpose: This study examined interest in and attitudes toward genetic testing in 5 different population groups.

Methods: The survey included African American, Asian American, Latina, Native American, and Appalachian women with varying familial histories of breast cancer. A total of 49 women were interviewed in person.

Social network analysis to assess the impact of the CTSA on biomedical research grant collaboration.

Success of the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) program implicitly demands team science efforts and well-orchestrated collaboration across the translational silos (T1-T4). Networks have proven to be useful abstractions of research collaborations. Networks provide novel system-level insights and exhibit marked changes in response to external interventions, making them potential evaluation tools that complement more traditional approaches.

All-cancers mortality rates approaching diseases of the heart mortality rates as leading cause of death in Texas.

Objectives: Diseases of the heart and malignant neoplasms (all-cancers) are the leading causes of death in the United States. The gap between the two has been closing in recent years. To assess the gap status in Texas and to establish a baseline to support evaluation efforts for the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas, mortality data from 2006 to 2009 were analyzed.

A partnership of two U.S. research networks to improve public health.

Strategic collaborations are essential in moving public health research and practice forward, particularly in light of escalating fiscal and environmental challenges facing the public health community. This commentary provides background and context for an emerging partnership between two national networks, Prevention Research Centers (PRCs) and Public Health Practice-Based Research Networks (PBRNs), to impact public health practice. Supported by CDC, PRCs are celebrating over 25 years of transdisciplinary applied prevention research grounded in community and stakeholder engagement.

Cancer incidence and mortality in Texas and the United States: an overview.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases annually an updated US Cancer Statistics report containing incidence and mortality data for all states and aggregate US data that allow for more meaningful comparisons across populations and geographic regions than do the number of new cases and deaths. This article examines major Texas findings from the most recent report (for the 5-year period 2003-2007) and compares Texas and United States.

Hormone replacement therapy and survival in lung cancer in postmenopausal women in a rural population.

Background: Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may play a role in the development of lung cancer and subsequent survival. Results from studies exploring these issues are inconsistent. A retrospective study in a rural population was conducted to determine whether a history of HRT use is associated with survival of postmenopausal women with lung cancer.

Incidence of oral cavity and pharynx cancer in Kentucky.

Background: Oral cavity and pharyngeal (OCOP) cancer is strongly associated with tobacco use and alcohol consumption. Kentucky consistently has one of the highest rates of tobacco use in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in incidence rates in Kentucky as compared to nationwide data as well as regional differences within the state.

Cancer incidence in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia: disparities in Appalachia.

Context: Composed of all or a portion of 13 states, Appalachia is a heterogeneous, economically disadvantaged region of the eastern United States. While mortality from cancer in Appalachia has previously been reported to be elevated, rates of cancer incidence in Appalachia remain unreported.

Purpose: To estimate Appalachian cancer incidence by stage and site and to determine if incidence was greater than that in the United States.

The Appalachia Cancer Network: cancer control research among a rural, medically underserved population.

Residents of Appalachia, especially those in rural Appalachia, are generally considered to be medically underserved. In fact, cancer mortality in Appalachia, especially in rural Appalachia, is higher than it is in the remainder of the United States. Developing from the Appalachia Leadership Initiative on Cancer, the Appalachia Cancer Network (ACN) is a network of academic and community organizations that seek to conduct surveillance, intervention, and dissemination research to reduce this excess cancer burden in Appalachia.

Geographic trends in cervical cancer incidence and mortality in Kentucky, 1995-2000.

Background: Kentucky's elevated cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates are well documented. However, in Kentucky, as in the United States as a whole, cervical cancer incidence and mortality have been decreasing.

Methods: To determine if the incidence and mortality declines in Kentucky are similar in different geographic regions of the state, incidence and mortality data for the six-year period 1995-2000 were analyzed by five geographic subdivisions.