Population studies facilitate the discovery of genetic and environmental determinants
of cancer and the development of new approaches to cancer control and prevention.
Furthermore, epidemiology studies play a central role in making health policies.
Cancer epidemiology may address a number of research areas such as:
• familial predispositions to colon cancer and breast cancer study to determine whether
families who carry a genetic predisposition to breast cancer may also be at risk of
colon cancer, and vice versa;
• prospective examination of whether baseline dietary intakes and serum levels of carotenoids
and vitamin A are associated with subsequent risk of lung cancer;
• analysis of the relationship between serum levels of sex-steroid hormones and genetic polymorphisms
in biosynthesis enzymes in a prospective cohort of pre-menopausal women;
• analysis of the role of HLA-Class II similarity/dissimilarity between sexual partners
and the role in HIV transmission, using the multicenter hemophilia cohort study
population for the data set;
• multiple comparisons and the effect of stratifying data on study power.