Louisiana Cancer Maps is an interactive mapping tool of cancer data for 71 cancer reporting zones in Louisiana. You can map cancer incidence for the 20 most common invasive cancer sites and filter by sex and race/ethnicity. Visit Learn to understand the purpose of this tool and how the tool can be applied, as well as the zone design methodology, data sources, and FAQs.
| Cancer Statistics | Cases | Age Adjusted Incidence Rate (95% LCI, 95% UCI) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zone | |||
| Statewide | |||
| Nationwide | |||
To ensure confidentiality and stable statistical rates, cancer incidence rates are not reported if based on fewer than 16 cancer cases. Distributions of selected population demographic factors are also provided for each zone. These data are from the decennial U.S. Census or the Census’s American Community Survey.
The Louisiana Cancer Maps project aims to provide data for geographies beyond parish-level statistics to better serve cancer control, public health, and policy efforts.
Louisiana Cancer Maps allows users to interactively map health data for Louisiana at a geographic level called zones, which are aggregates of census tracts. We have used a data-driven approach to define 71 zones for Louisiana, based on similar characteristics (poverty, urbanicity, racial/ethnic minority composition) and a minimum of 50,000 residents. These areas are generally smaller than parish, but larger than census tract. Zones vary in population size from 50,889 to 102,680 with the number of census tracts ranging from 6 to 39.
Louisiana Cancer Maps include 5-year and 10-year cancer incidence rates based on the most current data for the 20 most common cancer sites by sex and race/ethnicity (non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic Black). It also includes selected population demographic data based on 2010 Census and 2015-2019 American Community Survey data. Cancer incidence rates will be updated annually as more current data become available.
Project Team
Louisiana Tumor Registry
National Cancer Institute
Westat, Inc.
Funding
The Louisiana Tumor Registry is supported by the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the State of Louisiana, the LSU Health Sciences Center – New Orleans, and host institutions.
On this website, data are shown by cancer reporting zone. These zones have been designed so that they have a minimum population, have similar demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, and are geographically compact (they minimize the distance between different parts of the zone). The minimum population for each zone is 50,000 people.
Parishes with larger populations (more than 100,000 people) were divided into multiple zones by combining adjacent census tracts. For the rest of the state, adjacent parishes and parts of parishes were combined to form zones. Three demographic and socioeconomic characteristics were used to determine similarity: the percent minority population (percent of the population who are not non-Hispanic White), percent of the population with incomes below poverty, and the proportion of the population living in urban and rural areas.
We used population data and tract geographies from Census 2010 to construct the zones. Poverty data came from the American Community Survey 2015-2019 5-year data. We used a software zone design program called AZTool to identify aggregations of adjacent tracts and parishes that optimize the three objectives: a target population of 50,000, geographic compactness, and similarity in terms of minority population, poverty, and urbanicity characteristics.
Aggregation: Collections of smaller units grouped together for the purposes of statistical reporting. See Methodology for more information.
Age-Adjusted Incidence Rate (AAIR): Age-adjustment is a statistical method that allows comparisons of incidence rates to be made between populations with different age distributions. This is important since the incidence of most cancers increases with age. An age-adjusted cancer incidence (or death) rate is defined as the number of new cancers (or deaths) per 100,000 population that would occur in a certain period of time if that population had a ‘standard’ age distribution. In the Louisiana Cancer Maps, incidence rates are age-adjusted using the U.S. 2000 Standard Population.
% Below Poverty*: Percent of population below poverty level in the past 12 months.
Confidence Interval: A statistical measure of the precision of the observed incidence rate. The lower confidence interval (LCI) and upper confidence interval (UCI) provide a range within which the true rate is thought to be with 95% confidence. Rates based on larger numbers of cases are subject to less variation.
Data Suppression: To ensure confidentiality and stable statistical rates, cancer incidence rates are not reported if based on fewer than 16 cancer cases.
Demographics: Statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within it.
% Did Not Finish High School*: Percent of population with less than a high school graduate education.
Incidence: The number of new cases of cancer diagnosed in the selected time period.
% Population with income below poverty*: Percent of the population with income below the federal poverty level.
Race/Ethnicity: Race/ethnicity is categorized as: All races/ethnicities, Non-Hispanic (NH) White, NH Black. "All races" includes all of the above, as well as other and unknown race/ethnicity and American Indian/Alaska Native. The latter two groups are not reported separately due to small numbers for many cancer sites.
Racial/Ethnic Composition+: Distribution of residents’ race/ethnicity (e.g., % Hispanic, % non-Hispanic White, % non-Hispanic Black, % non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander).
Rural+: Percent of residents who reside in blocks that are designated as rural.
Sex: Louisiana Tumor Registry defines this field as the sex or gender of the cancer patient, and codes available are male, female, intersex, transsexual, and transgender (natal male, natal female, or not specified). However, categories beyond male and female are not consistently coded by medical reporting facilities, and population estimates for gender categories beyond male and female are not available. Thus, cancer incidence data are reported for only male and female sex at this time.
% With Bacherlor’s Degree*: Percent of population with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
% Without Health Insurance*: Percent of population without health insurance.
Use of Louisiana Cancer Maps implies consent to abide by the terms of these data use restrictions. Any effort to determine the identity of any reported cases, or to use the information for any purpose other than for health statistical reporting and analysis, is against the law.
Therefore users will:
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