Estimated Cancer Prevalence, New York State

What is prevalence?

"Cancer prevalence" refers to the number of people who have been diagnosed with cancer and who are still alive. We provide two prevalence estimates. First is an estimate of the number of people who live in New York who were diagnosed with cancer within the past five years. Second is the number of people who were ever diagnosed with cancer.

How is cancer prevalence estimated?

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has developed a method to estimate the proportion of the United States population that has had cancer in the past. We used these prevalence proportions to develop the cancer prevalence estimates for New York State. We adjusted the calculation by sex, race, and age. Specifically, the site, sex, race, and age-specific prevalence proportion from the NCI were applied to the corresponding population counts in New York State. We also used data from the New York State Cancer Registry to account for differences in cancer incidence and mortality between New York State and SEER registries.

Prevalence estimates