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Tools for using commercial sources of residential histories for cancer research
How to use NCI’s SAS residential history generation programs
As part of the National Cancer Institute’s residential history pilot project, Westat created “ResHistGen,” a set of open-source SAS programs that will help researchers and others reconcile data from commercial vendors and generate residential histories of study participants.
For more information on the residential history study and the development of the SAS programs, see NCI/SEER Residential History Project [1544kb PDF], the study’s technical report.
The steps to use the ResHistGen programs for the creation of residential histories of research subjects can be performed by staff at the cancer registry, members of the research team, or staff at a third-party contractor. To access the programs along with information on how to use them, please go to the GitHub repository. Individual patient identifiers are needed for this process. It is essential that the researcher follow established procedures to protect the privacy of human subjects.
The ResHistGen programs are released under the GNU General Public License [34kb text file]. For questions, limited support is available by email at NCI.ResidentialHistory@westat.com; enhancements may also be shared via this email address and if found to be beneficial, they will be included in a future release. By the terms of the license, you may distribute your changes on your own provided you include a prominent notice that you have modified the original.
If you publish results based on these programs, please include the following citation: ResHistGen Residential History Generation Programs, Version 3.0 – June 2024; Surveillance Research Program, National Cancer Institute.