DCCPS Overview

Program Review Group

The Cancer Control Program Review Group was convened in 1996 by NCI’s director and the chair of the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors to assess the scope of NCI’s cancer control research program and recommend changes aimed at accelerating reductions in the nation’s cancer burden. The review group recommended several major changes and new directions for cancer control at NCI, including attention to basic biobehavioral research.

Realizing that the scope of cancer control reflects the concurrent needs of society and developments in scientific knowledge, the group identified several important trends to which NCI’s research needed to be responsive. These trends included the increasing age and diversity of the population, new discoveries in genetics, the revolution in information technology, and the restructuring of the health care delivery system.

History

The Cancer Control Program Review Group endorsed plans to establish NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences and ensure that it included a range of research, from fundamental and intervention research to surveillance research. The Cancer Surveillance Research Program joined the newly created DCCPS from the former Division of Cancer Prevention and Control (currently the Division of Cancer Prevention). The surveillance program has since been reorganized into two separate DCCPS programs: Surveillance Research and Applied Research.

Some parts of the DCCPS Behavioral Research Program (BRP) were created from components of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control. Likewise, the Epidemiology and Genetics Research Program joined DCCPS from the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics.

Several branches within BRP, including Basic Biobehavioral Research and Health Communication and Informatics Research, are entirely new. The Office of Cancer Survivorship is new as well; it was created to expand research benefiting cancer survivors, who today number more than 9.6 million. DCCPS established the Research Diffusion and Dissemination arm of the Office of the Director to develop partnerships and initiatives in the delivery of evidence-based interventions and products.