Renowned research project, the Australian Cancer Atlas, was awarded both the 2019 Asia Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards (APSEA) Award for Spatial Enablement and the JK Barrie Award for Overall Excellence last night.

The Asia-Pacific Spatial Excellence Award ceremony was held online yesterday by the Surveying & Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI).

The awards celebrate the achievements of top spatial information enterprises and individuals, showcasing the finest projects and most significant performance of professionals the surveying and spatial industry has to offer.

Projects and individuals attaining recognition through this program are deemed to be outstanding achievers in their field.

The JK Barrie Award for Overall Excellence is named in honour of the selfless commitment of Keith Barrie and recognises contribution to the professional and business communities.

Launched in 2018, The Australian Cancer Atlas was a collaborative project between Cancer Council Queensland, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and FrontierSI.

The interactive digital cancer atlas shows national patterns in cancer incidence and survival rates based on where people live for 20 of the most common cancers in Australia – such as lung, breast and bowel cancer – likely reflecting the characteristics and lifestyles of individuals in the area and their access to health services.

After receiving the Regional (QLD) Excellence Award for Spatial Enablement, the Australian Cancer Atlas was nominated for the corresponding Oceania Asia-Pacific Award 2019

Cancer Council Queensland Descriptive Epidemiology Senior Manager Professor Peter Baade said the charity was excited to receive the awards for the Australian Cancer Atlas.

“It is exciting to receive this recognition for the Atlas, reflecting the collaboration between Cancer Council Queensland and the other partners,” Prof Baade said.

“This project was built on years of work led by Cancer Council Queensland to better understand the cancer divide between metropolitan and rural areas, and map the gaps linked to socio-economic status and other area-based factors.

“The Atlas enables readers to easily visualise those differences and offers critical insight into how the patterns of cancer and outcomes in Australia vary depending on where people live, which can be used to drive research priorities and policies going forward.

“This gives health agencies and policy makers a better understanding of geographic disparities and health requirements across the country.”

While the current Atlas has identified inequalities in cancer incidence and survival across Australia, the next phase of the Atlas will aim to better understand why these disparities exist.

This will be achieved by exploring how the spatial disparities have changed over time, the role of individual and community level risk factors and the spatial differences in cancer screening and treatment.

Cancer Council Queensland and their partners are currently seeking additional funding to make these goals possible.

More information regarding the Australian Cancer Atlas is available via atlas.cancer.org.au and   cancerqld.org.au.