Last Thursday, New York State lawmakers passed legislation designed to transform New York’s current cancer mapping program. The measure would require the New York State Department of Health to plot cancer cases by census bloc, the smallest geographic entity that the federal government uses to tabulate information for its decennial census. From The New York Times:
[R]esidents would be able to gain access to that information through the most detailed map yet available, and track all kinds of cancers and where they occur. The online map would also plot where industrial facilities like power plants and chemical factories are located.
Read the full New York Times Article here
The Governor’s Deputy Secretary for Health, Dennis Whalen, cautioned:
It is not a diagnostic tool. A cancer map can’t tell you what causes cancer, it can’t tell you in a certain area where you live or reside if you will get cancer, so it’s important to put into context whatever is produced so it is useful to the public.
Read his remarks in Newsday.
Current data tables and maps of cancer incidence in New York can be found on The New York State Department of Health’s Cancer Surveillance Improvement Initiative page (http://www.health.state.ny.us/diseases/cancer/csii/).