In 2005 LCEA commissioned and paid for a study by the Epidemiology Department of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Peter Moschovitz, then a candidate for the degrees of Master of Public Health at UIC and Medical Doctor at University of Chicago conducted the research under the supervision of Dr. Leslie Stayner, Professor of Epidemiology at UIC. The study was delayed and ultimately hindered by the Illinois Department of Public Health’s refusal to release data that would have permitted UIC to map the cancers in Livingston County. The DPH gave UIC researchers limited access due to concerns about the applicability of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, also known as HIPAA, despite the express provisions for research that are found in the act. However, despite these limitations, UIC researchers conducted the review and were able to identify four cancers that occur with a higher than expected frequency for the county as a whole, even after adjusting for demographic factors: bladder, leukemia, myeloma, and bone cancer.
