204606 Introduction to Health Disparities Calculator (HD*Calc)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009: 8:35 AM

Nancy Breen, PhD , Applied Research Program, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD
Steve Scoppa, BS , Information Management Services, Inc., Silver Spring, MD
Sam Harper, PhD , Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Stephen Meersman, PhD , Surveillance Research Program, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD
Dave Campbell, BS , Information Management Services, Inc., Silver Spring, MD
Marsha E. Reichman, PhD , Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD
Familiar and novel measures of health disparities have been reviewed, and applied to national data sets, by our research team in two monographs (http://seer.cancer.gov/publications/disparities/ and(http://seer.cancer.gov/publications/disparities2/ ) and two published manuscripts. This work concentrates on the situation when a summary measure of disparity is needed across more than two groups as is the case for cancer related objectives of Healthy People 2010. It was found that two measures may lead to opposite conclusions as to whether a health disparity is increasing or decreasing over time. Interest in these publications led to development of HD*Calc software to be released shortly. This presentation will demonstrate HD*Calc using the California SEER and the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). These are robust data sets and both have national correlates (SEER-US and NHIS). Mammography and breast cancer data will be used to demonstrate HD*Calc. The monographs concluded that to fully understand current disparities in a particular health area and progress made in eliminating them, it is important to examine multiple, complementary measures. HD*Calc makes it easy for researchers to do this.

Learning Objectives:
Demonstrate the new software, HD*Calc, which can compute health disparities indices on any data set Evaluate breast cancer related health disparities over time in two data sets from the same geographic area with national correlates Compare results of different disparity indices and their policy implications

Keywords: Health Disparities, Breast Cancer

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Steve Scoppa programmed HD*Calc and has demonstrated it to audiences at the National Cancer Institute.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Health Disparities and Epidemiology
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