Abstract IA49: Advancing cancer disparities research through data integration: The Multiethnic Cohort Study
Authors: Cheng Iona , Gomez Scarlett Lin , Shariff-Marco Salma , Wu Anna H. , Park Sung-Shim Lani , Haiman Christopher A. , Wilkens Lynne , Marchand Loic Le 
Published: August 2020

The Multiethnic Cohort Study was established in 1993-1996 with the goal of examining lifestyle risk factors, especially diet and nutrition, as well as genetic susceptibility in relation to the development of cancer. The cohort comprises more than 215,000 adult men and women from five major U.S. racial/ethnic groups—African American, Japanese American, Latino, Native Hawaiian, and white—residing in Hawaii and California. It is one of the largest racially/ethnically diverse cohorts of its kind. Over the past 25 years, a wealth of questionnaire information has been surveyed from MEC participants and biologic specimens, including blood and urine samples, have been collected from more than 70,000 participants. Incident cancer cases in the MEC are identified annually through linkage with the NCI SEER Hawaii and California cancer registries. The cohort has been linked to medical claim data (Medicare) and hospital discharge diagnoses (in CA), allowing the study of many non-cancer endpoints. This rich resource has led to numerous important findings on racial/ethnic differences in the risk of breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers in relation to diet and lifestyle factors. In addition, seminal findings have been achieved in discovering and characterizing genetic risk loci for cancer and identifying ancestry-specific risk regions such as the chromosome 8q24 region that contributes to the racial/ethnic disparities in prostate cancer. Recent advances in omics technologies have led to innovative studies within the MEC that examine the roles of the exposome, genome, methylome, metabolome, and gut microbiome in understanding ethnic differences in the relationships of smoking and obesity with cancer. Participation in consortia has allowed us to leverage the data available for non-whites in multiple other studies. Furthermore, development of geospatial resources and methodologies coupled with the extensive residential histories of MEC participants has enabled new studies of the neighborhood social and built environments, air pollutant exposures, and cancer. To gain better insight on the biologic, behavioral, and environmental influences of cancer disparities, data integration across multiple scientific domains, using a “cells-to-society” framework, serves as a powerful approach and provides an opportunity to consider the intersection of multilevel determinants of cancer risk and survival. This presentation will provide an overview of the range of data resources within the MEC, share key findings in cancer disparities research at the individual and neighborhood level, and discuss future directions for large data integrative studies of cancer in diverse populations.

Citation Format: Iona Cheng, Scarlett Lin Gomez, Salma Shariff-Marco, Anna H. Wu, Sung-Shim Lani Park, Christopher A. Haiman, Lynne Wilkens, Loic Le Marchand. Advancing cancer disparities research through data integration: The Multiethnic Cohort Study [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2018 Nov 2-5; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(6 Suppl):Abstract nr IA49.