Tallahassee, Fla.—The Florida Department of Health’s statewide cancer registry has been recognized as a Registry of Excellence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR). This achievement highlights the department’s ongoing commitment to high quality data collection, analysis and reporting.

“The department is dedicated to producing the highest quality data to inform state leaders, stakeholders and citizens,” said State Surgeon General and Secretary of Health Dr. Celeste Philip. “We are proud our state cancer registry is now recognized as a Registry of Excellence by the CDC and we remain committed to maintaining this level of excellence in our data registries across all programs.”

Florida’s statewide cancer registry, the Florida Cancer Data System (FCDS), has been collecting incidence data since 1981 and in October 1994, FCDS became part of the NPCR administered by the CDC. Hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, radiation therapy centers, pathology laboratories and private physicians report approximately 115,000 newly diagnosed cases of cancer each year. At this time, the FCDS database contains over 3.4 million cancer incidence records. FCDS also maintains a cancer mortality file based on data provided from the State of Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics.

FCDS is one of 48 state registries supported by the CDC and one of only 22 registries recognized for excellence. This designation is based on meeting the CDC NPCR Standards for Data Completeness and Quality. Recognition is awarded for the most recent data submission indicating the high-quality data available for cancer prevention and control activities at the local, state, regional and national levels.

State and regional level data are used to plan and evaluate cancer control programs, conduct research and monitor cancer trends. To learn more about FCDS, visit https://fcds.med.miami.edu/inc/welcome.shtml.

~~~~~~~~~~~

About the Florida Department of Health

The department, nationally accredited by the Public Health Accreditation Board, works to protect, promote and improve the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county and community efforts.

Follow us on Twitter at @HealthyFla and on Facebook. For more information about the Florida Department of Health please visit www.FloridaHealth.gov.