A measure of how urban a cancer patient’s census tract at diagnosis is based on the Census Bureau’s identification of urban and rural areas (already collect at county-level). The variable is a 4 code continuum. The measure indicates of the rural nature of the place of residence and can be an indicator of access to recreation, access to food stores, exposures to pollutants, crime levels, social cohesion, etc. Collecting the variable with each decennial census allows for retrospective and cross-sectional epidemiologic analysis.

This is an update to existing fields. To allow flexibility of research questions, all years of URIC can be collected for all cases, but cases diagnosed 2016 forward should have URIC 2020 appended using NAACCR*Prep or File*Pro.

This variable is not coded directly. This data item is generated during CFD by NAACCR*Prep or File*Pro at any time.