HINTS Contributions to DCCPS Research Priorities

In 2022, NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) identified and unveiled six key research priorities representing areas where immediate and intensified focus could significantly accelerate scientific progress and increase the impact of DCCPS-sponsored research. These six priority areas include 1) digital health, 2) climate change, 3) modifiable risk factors, 4) health equity, 5) evidence-based cancer control policy, and 6) data strategies. HINTS plays a critical role in informing and advancing each of these key areas and is an important resource for the division in seeking to meet the goals outlined under each priority topic.

Digital Health

Expand and enhance digital health research to develop and test the efficacy and effectiveness of technology-based interventions that support cancer prevention and control.

HINTS has fielded many items related to the public’s use of digital health technology over the years, including questions related to health-related apps, wearable devices, and telehealth.

• On your tablet or smartphone, do you have any software applications or apps related to health?
• In the past 12 months, have you used an electronic wearable device to monitor or track your health or activity?
• In the past 12 months, did you receive care from a doctor or health professional using telehealth?

Climate change

Expand and enhance research to understand and mitigate the effects of environmental risk factors and disruptions to care resulting from climate change.

HINTS includes items assessing the public’s perceptions of climate change/other environmental health issues and their health effects.

• How much do you think climate change will harm your health?

Modifiable risk factors

Identify and intervene upon modifiable risk factors, alone and in combination, to prevent cancer across the life course, and among cancer survivors, to improve treatment response and health outcomes.

HINTS has measured the public’s cancer risk behaviors (e.g., tobacco use) and awareness of cancer risk factors (e.g., alcohol consumption) since its inception.

• Smoking status
• How much do you think that drinking alcohol could increase a person’s chance of developing cancer?

Health Equity

Promote cancer control research that leads to equitable and optimal health outcomes for all populations.

HINTS includes several items that can help researchers monitor and examine the prevalence, predictors, and impacts of health disparities. For example, in addition to standard demographic items, recent HINTS surveys have asked respondents about social determinants of health (e.g., food insecurity, experiences with discrimination).

• In the past 12 months, how often were the following things true? Someone in your household cut the size of meals or skipped meals because there wasn’t enough money for food.
• Have you ever been treated unfairly or been discriminated against when getting medical care because of your race or ethnicity?

Furthermore, the HINTS program provides linked datasets that can facilitate the examination of contextual, environmental, and social factors that may contribute to health disparities. The HINTS Data Linkage Project links HINTS data with external variables such as income inequality, median household income, and residential segregation.

Health Policy

Evaluate existing policies and inform future policies that impact optimal approaches for cancer prevention, control, care, and outcomes.

HINTS has included several health policy-related questions over the years, including items assessing public support for various cancer control policies (such as warning label requirements), as well as items monitoring the impact of newly enacted policies (such as menu labeling regulations).

• To reduce the problems associated with excessive alcohol use, to what extent would you support or oppose… Requiring specific health warnings on alcohol containers?
• Think about the last time you ordered food in a fast food or sit down restaurant, did you notice calorie information listed next to the food on the menu or menu board?

Data Strategies

Develop innovative strategies to efficiently and ethically collect, analyze, share, and reuse data to fill information gaps and accelerate research that will reduce the cancer burden.

The data strategies priority area focuses on accelerating research through collecting, analyzing, sharing, and reusing data. HINTS contributes to this priority area by making its datasets publicly available to researchers and practitioners, and by developing innovative datasets that enable more advanced analyses. For example, the HINTS Data Linkage Project contains geo-coded HINTS data linked at the county level with over 70 external variables (e.g., number of Federally Qualified Health Centers, percent of households with broadband internet) from sources such as US Census and USDA to help answer important questions about area-level influences on cancer prevention and control.