What is the cancer burden in my area and what does it mean to be higher or lower than the Australian average?

This version of the Australian Cancer Atlas reports ‘cancer burden’ using cancer diagnoses and survival within 5 years of diagnosis.

All the relative estimates displayed in the Australian Cancer Atlas are compared to the Australian average. So if a specific geographical area has a ‘high’ rate of being diagnosed with cancer, it means that the average risk for all people living in this area being diagnosed with cancer is likely to be higher than the Australian average. This does not mean that every individual living in that area has a higher risk.