Place—with its social, economic, demographic and health systems context—is key to framing not only how we understand cancer disparities, but also how we will address them with interventions, outreach and policy. However, existing data sources rarely have sufficient contextual information to allow for rigorous place-based investigations of cancer disparities. Therefore, Siran Koroukian, a Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods (PRCHN)-affiliated faculty member, and her team developed the Northeast Ohio Cancer Risk Assessment and Surveillance Engine (NEO-CASE), a multi-level data infrastructure.
NEO-CASE integrates multiple data streams containing spatial information, including data from Ohio’s state cancer registry, the Ohio Cancer Incidence Surveillance System, an ongoing survey of Ohio residents with emphasis on insurance status and Medicaid expansion, a database of primary care health professional shortage areas, and social and economic data from the census. NEO-CASE has an interface that allows public health officials, advocacy organizations, researchers and health system decision makers to explore and investigate the upstream and downstream determinants of health across the 15-county area of Northeast Ohio.
Koroukian, Weichuan Dong and Uriel Kim will discuss the topic at the next PRCHN seminar.
Their talk, titled “Building a Cancer Data Resource to Advance Disparities Research, Community Health, and Advocacy Efforts,” will be held Wednesday, June 12, from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the BioEnterprise Building, Room B-03.
In their presentation, they will discuss:
- The development and implementation of NEO-CASE;
- The capabilities of NEO-CASE’s interface, and its potential to advance community health and advocacy efforts; and
- Studies using NEO-CASE data to highlight the potential of NEO-CASE for disparities research.
About the speakers
Siran Koroukian is a health services researcher and associate professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the School of Medicine. She also leads the Population Cancer Analytics Shared Resource of Case Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Weichuan Dong is a health services research and spatial analyst in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences. He also is a PhD candidate and adjunct instructor of advanced geographic information sciences courses in the Department of Geography at Kent State University.
Uriel Kim, an MD/PhD candidate, is a trainee of the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He is the first trainee in the MSTP’s over 35-year history to pursue a training program with an explicit focus on community health and health disparities. His research and training activities are supported by the CWRU Center for Community Integration, the CWRU/UH Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and the PhRMA Foundation.
About the series
The PRCHN Monthly Seminar Series takes place on the second Wednesday of the month from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the BioEnterprise Building, Room B-03 (PRCHN Meeting Room), unless otherwise noted.
The public is welcome to attend, and a light lunch is served.