Cancer Registries / Epidemiology

Trends in Irish Cancer Incidence 1994-2002, with Predictions to 2020 (June 2006) Report on Women and Cancer in Ireland 1994-2001 (February 2006) Irish Cancer Society Action Prostate Cancer NCI Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program NCI Summer Curriculum in Cancer Prevention Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA)

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, and the follow-up All-Ireland Cancer Statistics Second Report 1998-2000, published in September 2004. 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. Anna Gavin, Director of the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry, serves as the chair of the CR WG for 2008. Chairmanship rotates annually between the directors of the two island cancer registries. Dr. Harry Comber is Director of the Republic's National Cancer Registry Ireland in Cork.

• 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.