Abstract

Geographic patterns of cancer mortality can often provide clues for public health professionals to identify high-risk areas where limited resources can be directed to conduct cancer epidemiological studies or improve health services related to cancer prevention and treatment. From spatial cluster analyses of mortality cases from 16 specific cancers in Texas over the period from 1990 to 1997, geographic patterns of cancer mortality clusters in Texas were identified. The results suggest that Texas citizens would benefit if cancer epidemiology studies and cancer prevention and treatment practices in Texas would target counties in Southeast Texas for mortality related to lung and bronchial cancer, female breast cancer, colon cancer, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; target counties in East (particularly Northeast) Texas for mortality from lung and bronchial cancer, pancreatic cancer, cancer of the brain and other nervous systems, and liver cancer; examine colon cancer mortality in Kaufman County; pay particular attention to mortality from liver cancer in San Antonio and the counties south of San Antonio; direct extra efforts to prostate cancer in the Dallas-Fort Worth area; and investigate the unusually high mortality rate of cervical cancer in Crockett County.