The likelihood of developing cancer during one\u27s lifetime isapproximately one in two for men and one in three for women in theUnited States. Cancer is the second-leading cause of death andaccounts for one in every four deaths. Evidence-based policyplanning and decision making by cancer researchers and public healthadministrators are best accomplished with up-to-date age-adjustedsite-specific cancer death rates. Because of the 3-year lag inreporting, forecasting methodology is employed here to estimate thecurrent year\u27s rates based on complete observed death data upthrough three years prior to the current year. The authors expandthe State Space Model (SSM) statistical methodology currently in useby the American Cancer Society (ACS) to predict age-adjusted cancerdeath rates for the current year. These predictions are comparedwith those from the previous Proc Forecast ACS method and resultssuggest the expanded SSM performs well
