Issues

The cover image is adapted from Figure 2 in the article, “Cancer InFocus: Tools for Cancer Center Catchment Area Geographic Data Collection and Visualization,” by Burus and colleagues. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) added Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) requirements for NCI-designated cancer centers in 2017, including the charge of characterizing the cancer burden in the geographic area served by their center (i.e., catchment area). Doing so helps cancer centers better identify needs and areas of inequality in their populations to guide research and outreach. To accomplish this, current and comprehensive data must be gathered from multiple sources and analyzed by the COE—a task that is tedious and inefficient. The authors present an efficient solution, known as Cancer InFocus, to collect and visualize quantitative data that they have generalized for use by other cancer centers on their catchment areas. Cancer InFocus delivers a choice of two routes for creating interactive online mapping applications that visualize cancer incidence and mortality rates, along with relevant social determinant and risk factor variables, at various geographic levels for a defined cancer center catchment area. Figure 2 shows examples of output from the final interface for both ArcGIS Online and Shiny versions of Cancer InFocus. Cancer InFocus provides tools for cancer centers to accomplish the critical task of maintaining current and comprehensive catchment area data. The open-source format will help future enhancements through user collaboration. For more information, see the article beginning on page 889.