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Cancer Registries / Epidemiology

The Board of Directors established the Cancer Registries Working Group (CR WG) to address epidemiology-related issues on the island of Ireland. One of the initiatives of the CR WG is to coordinate collaborations between the cancer registries of Ireland and Northern Ireland. CR WG collaborative efforts have led to the development and publication of the first All-Ireland Cancer Statistics Report 1994-96, a first-time analysis of cancer statistics for the island's entire population. This initial report was followed by the All-Ireland Cancer Statistics Second Report 1998-2000, published in September 2004, and the All-Ireland Cancer Statistics Third Report 1994-2004, published in April 2009. These reports are monumental in that they are the first documents to record the rate and incidence of cancer in the population of the entire island.

Another initiative of the CR WG is furthering the education of cancer epidemiologists on the island of Ireland. Consortium-endorsed fellowships in cancer epidemiology are offered through the NCI Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (CPFP). It is the hope of the Consortium that joint programs will help researchers understand more about cancer rates, trends, and outcomes on the entire island of Ireland by identifying geographic and population differences in cancer patterns. Additionally, the combined cancer data can be linked to other information sources to study possible relationships between cancer incidence and environmental, occupational, and lifestyle influences.

Dr. Harry Comber, director of the National Cancer Registry, Ireland, serves as chair of the CR WG for 2009. Chairmanship rotates annually between the directors of the two island cancer registries. Dr. Anna Gavin is director of the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry.

CR WG Objectives

To address epidemiology-related issues on the island of Ireland.
To cultivate the collection, coordination, and consolidation of data from the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry and the National Cancer Registry of Ireland.
To further the education of island cancer epidemiologists through Consortium-endorsed epidemiology fellowships.
To develop and/or support joint programs that will help researchers understand more about cancer rates, trends, and outcomes on the island by identifying geographic and population differences in cancer patterns.
To link island-wide cancer data to other information sources to study possible relationships between cancer incidence and environment, occupation, and lifestyle influences.