Australian Cancer Atlas

Research studies have long shown that where people live can have an impact on their health and affect the likelihood of being diagnosed with chronic diseases, like cancer.

In 2011, an Atlas of Cancer in Queensland was launched and proved to be an important resource that influenced key policy initiatives designed to reduce the geographical variation of cancer diagnoses across the state.

While other state-based cancer atlases have been released, a need for a comprehensive Australian-wide atlas was identified to provide a national perspective of how the burden of cancer varied by geographical areas.

The Australian Cancer Atlas was a collaborative study funded by the FrontierSI (formerly the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information), Cancer Council Queensland, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and Queensland University of Technology. The Atlas has additional support from the Centre for Research Excellence in Prostate Cancer Survivorship. It has been endorsed by the Australasian Association of Cancer Registries and Cancer Council Australia, and investigators accessed expertise from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers (ACEMS).

The Australian Cancer Atlas 1.0 was officially released in September 2018, with a data update released in February 2021.

Work on the Australian Cancer Atlas 2.0, a collaborative project between Cancer Council Queensland and QUT, commenced in March 2021, and is planned to be launched in 2023.