The Texas Connect for Cancer study is inviting 25,000 Texans to be part of a study that will include 200,000 people across the U.S. to help build a large, diverse database to better understand the causes of and how to prevent cancer. By engaging with people and communities who have been under-represented in medical research, the Baylor Scott and White Health System (BSWH) will work with urban, rural, low-income, and minority populations across 46 counties in Texas to collect information. Because the chance of getting cancer is based on where people live, their race or ethnicity, their age, and other factors, we will collect biological, environmental, behavioral, and demographic information. ...

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The Texas Connect for Cancer study is inviting 25,000 Texans to be part of a study that will include 200,000 people across the U.S. to help build a large, diverse database to better understand the causes of and how to prevent cancer. By engaging with people and communities who have been under-represented in medical research, the Baylor Scott and White Health System (BSWH) will work with urban, rural, low-income, and minority populations across 46 counties in Texas to collect information. Because the chance of getting cancer is based on where people live, their race or ethnicity, their age, and other factors, we will collect biological, environmental, behavioral, and demographic information. Patients of BSWH receive comprehensive care through a range of coordinated facilities and services which store private, protected information about patients' health in the form of electronic health records (EHRs). By agreeing to share their information with the Texas Connect for Cancer study, BSWH patients can offer a wide variety of information to researchers - survey responses, physical measurements, biosamples, EHRs - to help speed up cancer research breakthroughs. The long-term study will follow patients as they move, age, develop relationships, get sick, and try treatments. The Texas Connect for Cancer study will rely on a single integrated health system which covers an expansive geography in Texas and includes a comprehensive EHR to allow for follow-up that is both cost effective and very complete, an existing clinical infrastructure for collection of blood, urine, and saliva, and long-term stability of the patient population. By joining the study and filling out surveys a few times each year about health and things like habits, diet, exercise, and use of alcohol or tobacco, and donating samples of blood, urine, and saliva, health system patients can provide information which can help us find health and behavior patterns that may affect cancer risk.

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