SEER public-use data include incidence and population data associated by which attributes?

• A. Age, sex, race, year of diagnosis, and geographic areas
• B. Tumor size, stage, and receptor status
• C. Insurance status, income, and education level
• D. Hospital type, census region, urban/rural

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is that SEER public-use data are organized to support comparing cancer incidence across groups defined by fundamental demographic and geographic factors. The data are linked to population counts and cancer cases by age, sex, race, year of diagnosis, and geographic areas. Age and sex are the basic building blocks for risk, race captures population differences, the year of diagnosis lets you examine trends over time, and geographic areas align with the SEER registries and their population denominators. This structure enables calculation of incidence rates and trends within specific, well-defined populations.

Tumor characteristics like size, stage, and receptor status describe the cancer itself, not the demographic groups used to stratify incidence data. Socioeconomic factors such as insurance, income, or education are not the standard attributes used to define the public-use incidence/population data configuration. Geographic descriptors like hospital type or urban/rural can be relevant in other contexts, but the core attributes tied to incidence and population data in SEER are age, sex, race, year of diagnosis, and geographic areas.