Cancer
Cancer Incidence, Mortality and Screening
Explains the difference between incidence, mortality, survivorship and ‘cancer history’ measures, and why they must not be confused.
Beginner explanation
Cancer statistics use several different measures. Incidence counts newly diagnosed cases. Mortality counts deaths. Prevalence counts new and existing cases among people who are alive. Survival describes the share of patients still alive some time after diagnosis.[1]
MedEquity note: Each answers a different question, and mixing them up is a common mistake. A place can have many new diagnoses because it screens well, or many cancer survivors because people live longer after treatment — neither, by itself, means cancer is more deadly there.
Key definitions
- Incidence
- The number of newly diagnosed cases during a specific time period, often given as a rate per 100,000 people.
- Mortality
- The number of deaths during a specific time period.
- Prevalence
- New and pre-existing cases among people alive on a certain date.
- Survival
- The proportion of patients alive at some point after their cancer diagnosis.
- Lifetime risk
- The probability of developing, or dying of, cancer over a lifetime.
- Screening
- Checking for cancer before a person has symptoms.
- Overdiagnosis
- Finding a cancer that would never have caused a problem during a person’s life.
Condition characteristics
NCI’s national statistics show how different these measures are. For example, it reports a U.S. cancer incidence rate of 445.8 per 100,000 people per year (2018–2022 cases) and a cancer death rate of 145.4 per 100,000 per year (2019–2023 deaths), and an estimated 18.1 million cancer survivors as of January 2022.[2]
NCI also estimates that about 38.9% of people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives — a lifetime risk, not the share of people who have cancer today.[2]
Risk factors
Cancer rates rise with age, so places with older populations are expected to have more cancer. NCI notes that the U.S. population is aging and that, although smoking has declined, other risk factors such as obesity have increased.[2]
Age-adjusted rates account for differences in age distribution between places, which is why CDC suggests them for comparing areas. NCI describes a change in age-adjusted mortality as the best indicator of progress against cancer.[2, 5]
Prevention and public health context
CDC supports screening for breast, cervical, colorectal and lung cancer as recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Screening can find these cancers early, when treatment is likely to work best; for colorectal and cervical cancer it can also find precancerous changes before they become cancer.[3]
Screening for some other cancers — ovarian, pancreatic, prostate, testicular and thyroid — has not been shown to reduce deaths, according to CDC’s summary of Task Force findings.[3]
Screening affects the statistics. A new screening test can raise incidence by finding cancers earlier or by overdiagnosis, while deaths may stay the same. If death rates fall faster than incidence, that may reflect better treatment.[2]
Texas data context
The PLACES cancer measure on MedEquity is a modeled prevalence-style measure: the share of adults who report ever being told they had melanoma or another cancer (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer). It is not incidence and not mortality, and higher values can reflect older populations and longer survival.[4]
CDC labels PLACES estimates as modeled and advises against using them to track change over time, so they cannot show whether cancer is rising or falling in a county.[5]
Related measures on the Explore map
- Cancer history (non-skin cancer or melanoma) among adults (modeled estimate)
Advanced material (optional)
Incidence trends are harder to interpret than mortality trends. A real rise in exposure to a risk factor would be expected to raise both incidence and, eventually, deaths. A rise in incidence with stable deaths often points to more detection rather than more disease.[2]
Statistics by demographic group describe the cancer burden in subpopulations — for example by age, sex, racial or ethnic group, or geographic location — and are how differences between groups are identified.[1, 2]
References
- Defining Cancer Statistics. National Cancer Institute, SEER Program. https://seer.cancer.gov/statistics/types.html (accessed 2026-10-18).
- Cancer Statistics. National Cancer Institute (NIH). https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/statistics (accessed 2026-10-18).
- Cancer Screening Tests. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prevention/screening.html (accessed 2026-10-18).
- PLACES Measure Definitions: Health Outcomes. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/places/measure-definitions/health-outcomes.html (accessed 2026-10-18).
- PLACES: Frequently Asked Questions. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/places/faqs/index.html (accessed 2026-10-18).