Abstract 254: How can epidemiology become more effective in reducing the burden of cancer in the 21st century? An analysis of NCI-funded grants and the scientific literature
Authors: Lam Tram K. , Chang Christine Q. , Rogers Scott D. , Khoury Muin J. , Schully Sheri D. 
Published: May 2015

Background: Concurrent with an NCI sponsored 2012 workshop on the future of cancer epidemiology, a set of “drivers” were identified to accelerate the field of cancer epidemiology across the translational research continuum in the 21st century: (i) emerging technologies; (ii) multi-level analyses and interventions; (iii) knowledge integration from basic, clinical and population sciences; and (iv) collaboration and team science.

Objective: To map the evolution of identified “drivers” and key translational phases (T0-T4) in the past decade.

Methods: We analyzed grants funded by the NCI's Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program and published literature for 2000, 2005, and 2010. For each year, we evaluated the aims of all new and competing grants and randomly selected 100 cancer epidemiology articles from PubMed. We used two-sample t-tests to compare differences between “drivers” and multivariate logistic regression to investigate the relationship between multi-institutional collaboration and the remaining “drivers”.

Results: Our results show a significant shift from single-institution studies that focused on traditional questionnaire-based epidemiology studies to technology-driven, multi-disciplinary consortia-driven studies for both NCI grants and published literature. Compared to grants that were single-institution-based, consortia grants were significantly more likely to incorporate key contemporary technologies (OR= 3.53; 95% CI=1.44-8.61; p-value = 0.005) and engaged in multi-level analyses (OR =2.27; 95% CI=1.06-4.86, p-value=0.035). The vast majority of grants (82%) and publications (86%) analyzed were discovery (T0) or characterization (T1) research suggesting a critical need for more T2-T4 translational studies. Our evaluation also indicates a dearth of research in two areas: 1) multi-level analyses that takes into account the combination of molecular, individual, social and environmental determinants and 2) knowledge integration that evaluates the robustness and interpretation of scientific evidence derived from basic, clinical and population sciences.

Summary: Cancer epidemiology is at the cusp of a paradigm shift–propelled by a need to accelerate the pace of translating scientific discoveries to impart population health benefits. While multi-institutional and technology-drive collaboration is happening, our evaluation of funded grants and published literature in the first decade of the 21st century provide concrete evidence that concerted efforts to incorporate other key elements that influence the future of cancer epidemiology are warranted for the discipline to meet the challenges of this changing landscape.

Citation Format: Tram K. Lam, Christine Q. Chang, Scott D. Rogers, Muin J. Khoury, Sheri D. Schully. How can epidemiology become more effective in reducing the burden of cancer in the 21st century? An analysis of NCI-funded grants and the scientific literature. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 254. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-254