National Partnerships to Promote Cancer Surveillance Standards and Support Data Quality and Operations of National Program of Cancer Registries

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) supports a variety of activities in health departments and organizations aimed at preventing and controlling cancer, the second leading cause of death in US men and women. Since the passage of the Cancer Registries Amendment Act in 1992, the National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) has collected data on cancer occurrence, extent, treatment and outcomes in over 45 states and jurisdictions, representing 96% of the US population. CDC's Division of Cancer Prevention and Control (DCPC) has supported successful partnerships with national organizations to define standardized practices in U.S. cancer surveillance and assure and complete, timely, and high-quality data for the official federal U.S. Cancer Statistics. The purpose of this funding opportunity is to build strong partnerships among national organizations involved directly in cancer surveillance in order to enhance the data quality and operational efficiency of CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR). This program has three essential components: 1) Education, Translation and Quality Control of cancer surveillance standards and best practices; 2) Cancer Staging Collaboration and Support; and 3) Standardization and Support for Laboratory and Biomarker Electronic Reporting. The overarching goal of this project is to collaboratively define and promote uniform standards in cancer staging, collection and reporting. Funded entities will identify specific enhancement needs of cancer registries and support cancer surveillance professionals, including reporters (e.g. facilities, labs), tumor registrars, and registries to submit high quality, standardized data via central cancer registries to NPCR. Relevant performance measures will be used to assess the recipients’ activities that enhance the standards, quality, and operations of NPCR cancer surveillance system.