Considerations in setting up and conducting epidemiologic studies of cancer in middle‐ and low‐income countries: the experience of a case–control study of inflammatory breast cancer in N orth A frica in the past 10 years

Abstract

This article illustrates some issues we faced during our experience in conducting an epidemiologic case–control study of inflammatory breast cancer in N orth A frica. We expect that some of the questions we had to ask in order to address these issues might be helpful to others in setting up epidemiologic studies in developing regions. We describe our experience from different angles including the use of multiple sites to achieve adequate sample size, standardizing diagnosis of disease, identifying cancer cases at the time of diagnosis, control selection procedures, logistics of study implementation, questionnaire development and interviewing, biologic specimens, and procedures for protection of human subjects. We have developed a brief checklist to summarize important issues for conducting future epidemiologic studies in these or similar low‐ or middle‐income countries. This article illustrates crucial issues in setting up and conducting epidemiologic studies on cancer in North Africa. The questions we had to ask in order to address these issues might be helpful to others in setting up epidemiologic studies in developing regions. Our experience could improve time and cost efficiency of future epidemiologic studies in this or other regions in low‐ and middle‐income countries.