Previous North/South collaborations between the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry (NICR) and the National Cancer Registry of Ireland (NCRI) have produced high-quality reports, including the first All-Ireland Cancer Atlas. This enhanced understanding of cancer epidemiology across the island, demonstrated substantial variations North and South and catalysed further research funding, including the North/South PiCTure prostate cancer study with multiple outputs. Since then, significant demographic and social changes have occurred across the island, including increased population size, population ageing, migration pattern changes, urban/rural shifts, and changes in population education levels and employment status. Screening, diagnostic and treatment pathways for cancer North and South have evolved substantially. All these developments provide opportunities to compare outcomes, identify potential missed patterns when examining jurisdictions separately, laying foundations to examine survival differences and cancer prevalence, revealing new information on cancer survivors and their service needs. A new more granular All-Island perspective would empower policymakers and researchers across the island to advance cancer understanding and influence cancer policy.
Deploying advanced statistical and mapping techniques, AICA will:
Determine geographical distributions of incident cancers for 15 years to 2020 (2006-2020 inclusive) [DB1] on the island of Ireland at small-area level (Electoral Division in Republic of Ireland (IE); Super Data-Zone in (NI)), including variation by socio-economic and demographic factors.
Provide a unique, valuable resource for research into cancer risk factors across the island.
Enable all-island approaches to cancer services planning and evaluation.
Support research collaboration in data harmonisation, analysis and reporting of cancer data between North/South, including development of systems and platforms to support future updates of data between NI/IE.
Facilitate the use of data to shape health policy and enhance healthcare delivery
The project will also support skills and knowledge transfer, re-establishing mutually beneficial training, management and leadership links between Cancer Registries North and South.