title: Building capacity to assess cancer care in the Medicaid population in New York State.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To link data from a central cancer registry with Medicaid enrollment and claims files in order to assess cancer care in an economically disadvantaged population.
  
  
  METHODS
  Over 500,000 cancer patients diagnosed between 2002 and 2006 reported to the New York State Cancer Registry were linked with New York State Medicaid enrollment and claims records.
  
  
  METHODS
  A probabilistic linkage was performed between the two data sources. The resulting Medicaid and non-Medicaid populations were compared in terms of demographics and stage at diagnosis.
  
  
  METHODS
  Existing databases were used.
  
  
  RESULTS
  One-quarter of cancer patients were enrolled in Medicaid at or near the time of cancer diagnosis. The Medicaid cohort was younger, more likely to be an ethnic minority, foreign born, never married, live in either an inner-city or remote rural area, and have a higher stage at diagnosis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The linked dataset will permit detailed analysis of cancer treatment and cancer treatment disparities among historically understudied groups. The linkage has also resulted in improvements in Cancer Registry quality through the identification of errors and missing values. The linkage did present technical challenges in the form of immense file sizes not easily adaptable to desktop computers.
authors.affiliation: New York State Cancer Registry, 150 Broadway, Menands, NY 12204, USA. fpb01@health.state.ny.us
authors.forename: Francis P
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Boscoe
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schrag
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Patrick J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Roohan
authors.forename: Maria J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Schymura
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D054625:Healthcare Disparities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008484:Medicaid / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008498:Medical Record Linkage; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology / Q000628:therapy*; D009518:New York / Q000453:epidemiology; D011203:Poverty; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018426:SEER Program / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States