Cancer is the growth and spread of abnormal cells in the body. Most cancer cells create a lump called a tumor, named after the body part where it started. If cancer spread isn't stopped, it can cause serious illness and lead to death. DHSS and the Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Program provide data on cancer incidence in Missouri.
What Causes Cancer?
Many cancers are probably caused by a mix of genes and other risk factors.
Research studies have found connections between some cancers and environmental exposures, like chemicals, environmental pollutants, and radiation. But there is still a lot we don’t know. It can be difficult to link some cancers to environmental exposure, because cancers can take years to develop or may have many causes.
Finding cancer early, through screening, is important because it's easier to treat at an early stage. Screening can also help prevent diseases like breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers.
To learn more about cancer, visit Cancer and Chronic Disease Control.
Cancer Data
DHSS provides data on cancer prevalence, which is the number of people diagnosed with cancer. You can search the data by age, sex, race, and ethnicity.
Missouri Information for Community Assessment (MICA) - Cancer Incidence Query
Search this query to find:
Annual numbers of cancer cases
Annual crude rates of cancer incidence, per 100,000 residents
Annual age-adjusted rates of cancer incidence, per 100,000 residents
Other Data Sources
Cancer data can help you:
- See if some communities or populations are at higher risk of a type of cancer
- See if a type of cancer is going up or down over time
- Direct resources for preventing and controlling cancer
- See progress towards lowering cancer risks
The National Environmental Public Health Tracking Program
Missouri Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) is a program within the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. EPHT is part of a network of people and information systems which delivers a core set of health, exposure, and hazards data, information summaries and tools to enable analysis, visualization and reporting of insights drawn from data. Those insights are intended to help data drive actions and improve community health.