DCCPS by the Numbers

Smokefree.gov experienced a 69% increase in website visits from FY17 to FY18 (2.25 million to 3.8 million) due to programmatic improvements involving search engine optimization, site navigation, and adjusting content to better match how real smokers are seeking online information about smoking cessation.

As of FY18, 436 peer-reviewed publications had used data from the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), which monitors changes in the rapidly evolving fields of health communication and health information technology.

The searchable online Measures Registry of the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) contains 1,388 annotated validation studies of measures of diet, physical activity, and their environmental determinants. With NCCOR collaborators, DCCPS developed the Measures Registry and provides ongoing updates.

More than 1,100 peer-reviewed publications have resulted from the Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC) Centers initiative. TREC fosters collaboration across multiple disciplines and projects, from the biology, genomics, and genetics of energy balance to behavioral, sociocultural, and environmental influences upon nutrition, physical activity, weight, energetics, and cancer risk. The initiative also has trained 135 early-career researchers through annual transdisciplinary training workshops on energy balance and cancer.

The Research-Tested Intervention Program (RTIPs) is a searchable database of more than 195 evidence-based cancer control interventions and program materials, spanning 13 topics of interest, for program planners and public health practitioners.

The 2018 Training Institute in Dissemination and Implementation Research in Cancer (TIDIRC) provided 50 investigators with a thorough grounding in conducting dissemination and implementation (D&I) research with a specific focus on cancer across the cancer control continuum. The institute was delivered both online and in-person and was led by a faculty of leading experts in theory, methods, and evaluation approaches in implementation science.

The NCI Cohort Consortium has more than 7 million participants in 58 international cohorts, and more than 40 projects that have made scientific discoveries about cancer risk factors and technical advances in cohort methodologies.

The Automated Self-Administered 24-hour (ASA24®) Dietary Assessment Tool is a web-based tool that enables multiple, automatically coded, self-administered 24-hour recalls. Beginning with the 2016 release, ASA24 also permits data collection using single or multi-day food records. In 2018, on average 114 studies per month registered to use ASA24, and 6,660 recall/record days per month were collected by researchers.

The Cancer Epidemiology Descriptive Cohort Database (CEDCD) contains descriptive information from more than 60 cohorts in 17 different countries. The CEDCD includes brief descriptions of the cohorts, contact information, questionnaires, types of data collected, enrollment numbers, numbers of cancer cases, and number of biospecimens collected. Its purpose is to foster collaborations and encourage cohort-based research.

In FY18, 1,064 studies were published using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program, a premier source for cancer statistics in the US. In addition, 1,220 SEER custom data set requests were fulfilled for the research community, and 191,000 analyses were conducted using SEER*Stat software.

There were 40,650 total views for all videos in the Did You Know? video series. Each of the more than two dozen videos in the series provides key statistical data on different types of cancer to a lay audience in understandable, clear, and concise language.

DCCPS staff members are innovators in creating resources for the research community, such as methods and tools for population-based cancer statistics. In FY18, there were 3,205 downloads of Joinpoint, a statistical software for the analysis of trends using joinpoint models; that is, models where several different lines are connected together at the “joinpoints.”

As of the beginning of December 2018, DCCPS had hosted 53 webinars for the research community, with 5,628 participants in 2018. These webinars are one of the platforms DCCPS uses to share critical information with key audiences located across the country or in other parts of the world.

Nearly 3,300 participants have been accrued to Cancer Care Delivery Research (CCDR) studies of NCI’s Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP). NCORP is a national network that brings cancer prevention clinical trials and cancer care delivery research to people in their communities.

There were more than 2,200 customizable forms downloaded in FY18 for the Patient-reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (PRO-CTCAE) to capture symptomatic adverse events in patients on cancer clinical trials.

There were over 200 new requests to use SEER-linked data in FY18, including SEER-Medicare, SEER-Medicare Health Outcomes Survey (SEER-MHOS), and SEER-Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (SEER-CAHPS).

In 2018, NIH and FDA renewed their commitment to the Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS) Program and awarded a second cohort (TCORS 2.0) of centers to nine institutions. The TCORS are made up of scientists with a broad range of expertise, who generate critical research that informs the FDA’s regulation of tobacco products. NCI holds four of the new TCORS center grants; all of these grants include key scientific aims related to e-cigarettes/Electronic Nicotine Delivery Devices (ENDS) products.