Partly cloudy · 7°

Cancer in Iowa 99 Counties Project

posted on 2/3/25

We are excited to tell you about the Cancer in Iowa 99 Counties Project. The purpose of this project is to show our county some county-specific cancer information and address community concerns. This is a public health initiative focused on increasing cancer education and community engagement across Iowa’s 99 counties. We are the second county to partner with them to do this. What this is, is an online or in person meeting which will be held on February 20th at noon. They will have guest speakers from the Iowa Cancer Registry and the University of Iowa College of Public Health who will do an introduction, go over information about the rates of new cancers and cancer deaths in our county compared to the state of Iowa and the U.S, and they will also go over risk factor information for our county. They will then provide us with some resources and there will be time allotted at the end for questions, concerns, and ideas of community members. This is open to any local residents, public health officials, community leaders, and policy makers to attend and participate in the discussion. Some statistics: Iowa has the 2nd highest rate of new cancer diagnosis in the US, Chickasaw County ranks #16 for new cancer rates in Iowa with 1 being the highest and 99 being the lowest. Some of the top cancers for Chickasaw County in order are #1 prostate cancer, #2 lung cancer, #3 female breast cancer, #4 colorectal cancer, and #5 melanoma. If you are interested in learning more about this, there are a few ways you can participate in this meeting you can join the meeting online anywhere by using the link provided (registration link below). If you would rather attend a meeting in person or do not have access to a computer you can either come to the Chickasaw County Public Health Building or Mercyone Medical Center New Hampton at that time and we will both have them up to view and participate. Again, this is February 20th at noon.

Here is the registration link https://iowacancerconsortium.wildapricot.org/event-6038957