CI*Rank: Ranked Incidence and Mortality Rates by State, County, and Special Region

CI*Rank

The CI*Rank website presents ranked, age-adjusted cancer incidence and mortality rates by state, county, and special region in the US. The site also presents confidence intervals for those ranks. Ranked, age-adjusted US mortality rates for other causes of death are also provided, along with the confidence intervals.

Results presented in CI*Rank help show the usefulness of ranks. For example, ranks for relatively rare diseases or less populated areas may be essentially meaningless because of their large variability, but ranks for more common diseases in densely populated regions can be very useful.

Why Are Ranks Important?

  • People are inclined to compare things, and ranks make comparisons easy.
  • Ranks of health indices are widely recognized and available in the field of public health research and practice.
  • Federal, state, and local governments use the health index ranks to evaluate the effects of policies or programs and for program planning and priority setting.

Data Sources

CI*Rank includes the following data sources and allows users to compare counties, states, and specific geographical regions such as Appalachia and Gulf Coast counties.

  • U.S. Mortality Data 1999-2020

    From the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Age-adjusted rates obtained from SEER*Stat. For more information see SEER*Stat Mortality Data Description.

  • U.S. Cancer Incidence 1995-2020

    From the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) CiNA Analytic File, 1995-2020. The data for some years may be incomplete for specific states, and some states are excluded. See Summary of CiNA Data Included in CI*Rank (XLSX, 18 KB).

  • Cancer Burden Indices

    These are composite health indices based on data provided by cancer registries. For more information see Composite Indices of Cancer Burden in CI*Rank.

Detailed Methodology

A manuscript on the detailed methodology used in CI*Rank has been published in Statistics in Medicine:

Zhang S, Luo J, Zhu L, Stinchcomb D, Campbell D, Carter G, Gilkeson S, Feuer EJ. Confidence intervals for ranks of age-adjusted rates across states or counties. Stat Med 2014 May 20;33(11):1853-66. Epub 2014 Jan 13. [PubMed]

Contact Us

Please contact us at cirank@imsweb.com for technical support issues, or to suggest new composite indices of cancer burden or a special region of interest to include in CI*Rank.

Last Updated: 12 Mar, 2024