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Cancer Epidemiology Program

The Cancer Epidemiology Program, consistently one of the strongest programs in the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, has historically concentrated on the role of hormones in carcinogenesis. However, in recent years, the focus has gradually shifted to molecular epidemiology as well as the interactions between heritable determinants and the environmental carcinogens to which persons are exposed within their personal or collective environment.

Development and maintenance of resources is essential to epidemiologic studies. The Cancer Epidemiology Program includes these resources:

• The Cancer Surveillance Program, the population-based Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) cancer registry covering Los Angeles County.
• The Multiethnic Cohort, a large cohort composed of African-American, Latino, Japanese-American and European-American residents of Los Angeles and Hawaii.
• The California Teachers Study Cohort, comprising teachers and ex-teachers.
• Smaller, but still substantial, cohorts consisting of childhood community residents, residents of Singapore and of Shanghai, healthy twins, twins affected by cancer, and childhood cancer survivors.

Investigators utilize descriptive and ecological studies to generate or verify hypotheses, but concentrate on analytic studies, both cohort and case-control, using subjects identified using the various resources. Innovation in methods of measurement, study design and analysis are important activities.

The program comprises 29 investigators, with research focused on all major malignancies of the gastrointestinal, respiratory, gynecologic, genitourinary and hematologic systems. Additional research is dedicated to other miscellaneous cancers and a wide variety of different exposures, habits, genetic loci, resources, methodologies, resources and gene-environment interactions.

Publications