The State Health Registry of Iowa (SHRI)/Iowa Cancer Registry (ICR) is a population-based cancer registry that has served the State of Iowa since 1973. The ICR has been a member of the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program since its inception in 1973.*
The program was begun following the National Cancer Act of 1972 and was designed to represent geographic regions and subpopulations of the USA. Regions were selected on the basis of their ability to operate and maintain high-quality population-based cancer reporting systems. Iowa was selected as one of the initial 7 SEER members to represent the heartland, and today continues to operate an excellent registry.
The SEER member programs have been added incrementally with other epidemiologically significant population subgroups of racial and ethnic minorities and the membership has expanded to the current 18 Cancer Registries covering approximately 30% of the US population.
The goals of the ICR are to:
- Assemble and report measurements of cancer incidence, survival and mortality among Iowans;
- Provide information on changes over time in the extent of disease at diagnosis, therapy, and patient survival;
- Promote and conduct studies designed to identify factors relating to cancer etiology, prevention and control;
- Respond to requests from individuals and organizations in the state of Iowa for cancer data and analyses;
- Provide data and expertise for cancer research activities and educational opportunities.
*This project has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), under Contract No. HHSN261201300020I, funds from the State of Iowa, and funds from the University of Iowa.