Dr. Raid W. Amin

This study investigates the likelihood of clusters containing both breast cancer and lung cancer mortality as well as incidence within the female population of the contiguous United States using the geographical surveillance software program SaTScan. With the use of SaTScan we can perform a bivariate analysis of the two cancers using both a spatial and space-time analysis. The existence of clusters is then interpreted as disease cluster alarms for either a spatial analysis outcome or both. For our study, the geographical area was that of the 48 contiguous United States analyzed at the county level from the years 2001 to 2020 for mortality, and 2001 to 2018 for incidence. Covariates were used in a regression analysis to characterize county populations of the existing bivariate clusters as a way of identifying areas with known risk factors and locating areas with other risk factors associated with their clusters. Our results showed the existence of 28 purely spatial significant clusters containing both breast cancer and lung cancer for mortality, and 52 purely spatial significant clusters containing high likelihoods of both breast cancer and lung cancer incidence. Only two clusters contained a high likelihood of breast cancer incidence alone.