State Cancer Profiles

One difference is that the direct estimate is from data collected in one year, while the modeled estimate relies on pooled data from 2017 through 2019 or 2018 through 2019.

Another difference is that the modeled estimates use data from BRFSS as well as another survey (NHIS) that has a smaller but more representative sample, in that NHIS includes people without phones or with only cell phones. The national cancer screening prevalence estimates based on the BRFSS was sometimes substantially larger than the NHIS estimates for the same time period. For similar time periods, the modeled estimates may be closer to the true value.

See the Data Type Explanation.

The model uses multiple years (2008-2010) to provide reasonable sample sizes (mainly for estimates at the county level), and needs at least two years of data from each survey. For the screening questions, data actually came from year 2008 and 2010. For smoking, data came from each year of 2008 to 2010.

¹ Davis WW, Parsons VL, Xie D, Schenker N, Town M, Raghunathan TE, Feuer EJ. State-based estimates of mammography screening rates based on information from two health surveys. Public Health Rep 2010 Jul-Aug;125(4):567-578. [Access article]