The most recently reported SEER data on the incidence of cancer
are derived from 12 areas, including five entire states (Utah, Iowa,
Connecticut, New Mexico, and Hawaii), six metropolitan regions (Atlanta,
Detroit, Los Angeles, San Jose/Monterey, Seattle, and San
Francisco), and the native population of Alaska (Figure 4–1).
Although about 14% of the population of the United States
resides within these 12 areas combined, this is clearly not a random
sample of the nation. The areas were selected largely on the basis
of the ability to maintain ongoing population-based cancer reporting
systems and epidemiologic interest in the population subgroups that
reside there. Collectively these registries provide reasonably representative
samples of different regions of the country, rural and urban populations,
and most major racial and ethnic groups.