Grant Number:	3U54CA280811-02S2 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Rehkopf, David
Organization:	Stanford University
Project Title:	The Upstream Center: Income Interventions to Address the Fundamental Causes of Cancer Inequities
Fiscal Year:	2024

ABSTRACT A central goal of NCI Persistent Poverty Initiative Centers is to understand and address structural factors driving cancer inequalities in persistent poverty areas. To advance this goal, we need to facilitate access and build capacity for projects that can examine the impacts of structural and social determinants of health on cancer with appropriate data sources that are inclusive of diverse populations. Linked SEER-Medicare data is one of the best sources of data to further work on studying structural and social impacts on cancer, but several critical barriers exist to its widespread use. SEER-Medicare data does not include very detailed structural and social information, so this needs to be incorporated through geographic overlay of area deprivation indexes and measures of structural racism. There is also a complex process for obtaining the data, with a long timeline for approval of projects, thus making it difficult for fellows and trainees to use the data for projects. This proposed supplement to our Upstream Research Center is directed towards addressing these barriers, to facilitate the use of real-world data for informing the best ways to address structural and social determinants of health for reducing the cancer burden in persistent poverty areas. First, we will create measures of the most commonly used social deprivation indexes, and area-based measures of structural racism, and make these measures publicly available with code and documentation for how they are created. Next, we will use new artificial intelligence approaches to create synthetic versions of SEER-Medicare data, and make this available to researchers at NCI Persistent Poverty Initiative Centers. We will accomplish these objectives with the following specific aims: Aim 1. Create area-level deprivation indexes and measures of persistent poverty to be used as geographic overlays for SEER-Medicare data. Aim 2. Create synthetic versions of SEER-Medicare data that include area level deprivation indexes and measures of structural racism. Aim 3. Validate the accuracy and utility of SEER-Medicare synthetic data for examining the effects of structural and social determinants of health on cancer incidence and mortality.





None. See parent grant details.