Executive Leadership & Expert Bios

Hannah K. Weir, PhD, MSc

Senior Epidemiologist, Division of Cancer Prevention and Control

Hannah K. Weir, PhD, is currently a senior epidemiologist in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control in CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP). Prior to coming to CDC, Dr. Weir was an epidemiologist at Cancer Care Ontario (Canada). Dr. Weir's research focus is primarily in the area of cancer surveillance, with a particular focus on population-based cancer survival.

She received her PhD training in cancer epidemiology at the University of Toronto. Her Masters in epidemiology is from the Department of Environmental Health at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Dr. Weir joined CDC in 1996 where she helped establish the National Program of Cancer Registries' (NPCR) Cancer Surveillance System (NPCR-CSS) to receive, evaluate and disseminate data from the 48 population-based cancer registries funded by CDC. She also led the first team responsible for publishing the annual United States Cancer Statistics (USCS) report featuring incidence data from NPCR and the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program. Dr. Weir was the first CDC author to lead the Annual report to the nation on the status of cancer, 1975-2000, featuring the uses of surveillance data for cancer prevention and control (2003).

In 2008, Dr Weir received the Constance L. Percy Award for Distinguished Service from the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries for her work in the cancer surveillance community in promoting collaboration between national and state partners in the collection and use of population-based survival data.

The CONCORD study is a worldwide analysis of cancer survival in five continents and the first study to use standard quality-control procedures and identical analytic methods for all datasets. The first CONCORD study reported that for patients diagnosed and followed through the 1990's, cancer survival for female breast, colon, rectum, or prostate varied widely between and within countries. The study documented that in the United States, cancer survival in black men and women was systematically and substantially lower than in white men and women in all 16 states and six metropolitan areas included. A second CONCORD study is underway and will include more cancer sites and expanded global coverage. The study will also estimate the number of avoidable deaths if cancer disparities by race were to be eliminated. Results are expected in 2013.

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