Spatial Statistics for Cancer Epidemiology – The Cancer Registry’s Epidemiological and Statistical Data Exploration System (CARESS)

Due to the Federal Cancer Registration Act passed in 1994, all federal states of Germany are obligated to install population-based cancer registries before 1999. In the course of the establishment of a cancer registry in Lower-Saxony, a computer-based toolbox called CARTools, which is designed to support work of this kind of institutions, is currently being developed at OFFIS, an institute for computer science. CARLOS (Cancer Registry LowerSaxony) is the name of the corresponding project, started in 1993. The CARTools comprise four tools, one of which is CARESS (CARLOS Epidemiological and Statistical Data Exploration System), implementing support for the statistical and epidemiological data analysis on the registry database. In this paper, the functionality of CARESS and the design of the integration of data analysis features in an interactive graphical user interface aiming at different user groups is presented. Special emphasis is put on the support of spatial data analysis which is the main focus of this system. To ensure both efficiency and flexibility, the underlying database system strives to integrate concepts from the domains of spatio-temporal, multidimensional and statistical database systems. Furthermore, a separate geographical data server provides both high-quality spatial data and facilities to manipulate these data which stem from the field of geographical information systems.