About the Interactive Maps

Purpose

Provide maps of demographics, screening and risk factors, and mortality statistics for use in assessing the burden and risk for a major cause of death for the US overall or for a selected state and its counties or parishes. The Healthy People 2020 objective for the US is provided in the legend when appropriate in order to give perspective on how favorably or unfavorably a location compares to this overall goal. The 95% Confidence Intervals for the rates provide a measure of how certain or uncertain the point estimates are and can be used to generally assess how different a rate is from another.

Statistics require careful interpretation. See the information page about interpret rankings for insight into interpreting statistics particularly if you are a new user of statistics.

There are many possible explanations for geographic variations in rates including differences in lifestyles, medical care availability and delivery systems, screening practices, reporting practices, environmental exposures, etc. Elevated rates in some areas may also be due to chance, particularly for relatively rare diseases and in areas with small populations.

Data Sources

• Mortality data are provided by the National Vital Statistics System at the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Population counts for denominators are based on Census populations as modified by NCI.
• Rates are calculated using SEER*Stat.
• Demographic data provided by the Census Bureau and Small Area Health Insurance Estimates.
• Screening and Risk Factor data provided by:
  • BRFSS Survey Data collected by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation (http://no-smoke.org).
  • Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (TUS-CPS). Detailed information about survey questions can be found here.
  • Small Area Estimates are based on a statistical model which combines information from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and the National Health Interview Survey to correct for nonresponse and undercoverage bias and are enhanced in small areas by borrowing information from similar areas across the nation. For more information, visit https://sae.cancer.gov/.

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