HRS-Health and Retirement Survey
Strength: Does spousal support influence cancer prognosis? HRS collects information on relationships (spousal and other family members) and specifically asks about whether a participant’s cancer has gotten better, worse, or stayed the same.
Weakness: Does social media use influence cancer screening?
Better dataset: Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) is a nationally representative survey that provides information on women’s attitudes and behaviors towards cancer screenings. HINTS collects information on most sources of health information and screening practices/behaviors.
PSID: Panel Study of Income Dynamics
Strength: Does parental SES influence cardiovascular risk in daughters?
Panel study of income dynamics collects information on a multitude of social factors across generations (grandparents, parents, and children) so SES for both parents can be constructed. PSID also collects information on a variety of health outcomes including cardiovascular disease.
Weakness: Does BPA exposure in adolescence increase breast cancer in post-menopausal women?
Better dataset: Breast cancer and the environment study has collected information on environmental exposures for pre-adolescent and adolescent girls. Though it is too early to collect information for cancer (as the average onset of breast cancer is roughly 62 in the United States) the dataset is useful for future analyses.
SEER-Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results
Strength: Are Black-White cancer disparities worse in southern states?
SEER collects cancer data from across the United States. Though they do not collect data from all 50 states, they do collect data from southern states including Georgia, New Orleans, and Louisiana. Black-White disparities in these states may be compared with states such as California, Connecticut, Iowa, and Hawaii.
Weakness: Does neighborhood SES influence cancer risk? Though SEER provides Zip code data, it does not provide census tract or block group information for cancer cases. Previous studies have shown that census-tract provides stronger effect estimates when assessing neighborhood effects and cancer incidence.
Better dataset: The Cancer Prevention Institute of California (CPIC) which houses the Northern California cancer registry has created a neighborhood SES index (Yang index) for the state of California which can be paired with cancer cases.