ABSTRACT
Coding the locations of cancer incidences, facilities, and services is now seen as the basis for measuring important aspects of the cancer burden. Standards for assigning these geocodes have not yet been developed, and as this book has shown, there are reasons why this is the case. First among these reasons is the fact that there is no agreement on all of the purposes of geographical analyses of cancer, and if there is agreement regarding purpose, then there is no agreement on the methods of meeting the purpose. However, some conclusions can be reached about good ways to proceed. It is clear that different geocodes are good for serving different purposes, which quickly leads to a conclusion that the question of the best geocode is not an appropriate question. One geocode in particular, the latitude and longitude coordinates of the residence of an individual with cancer, can be the basis of many other geocodes. One way forward is to make the location coordinates of the individual the basic geocode from which other geocodes are developed. Each geocode is valuable to the degree that its use adds value to some purpose. One current problem is that currently available geocodes for cancer become constraints for reaching a given purpose. Current uses of cancer geocodes are thus not a good measure of their future value.
