SEER-CAHPS: Summarized Denominator (SUMDENOM) File

A Summarized Denominator (SUMDENOM) file has been generated for the "non-SEER" cases. They include patients in SEER areas that were never diagnosed with cancer and patients that reside in non-SEER areas. Some of the patients have indicated on the CAHPS survey(s) that they have cancer. To identify non-cancer patients, two variables were added to indicate if the patient has responded "no cancer" on at least one survey (CASTAT5 = 1), and "no cancer" on all surveys (ALL_CASTAT5 = 1). The variable CASTAT5_SEERAREA can be used to identify control patients that reside in SEER areas and have completed at least one survey when they did not have cancer.

This file allows investigators easier access to and use of the CMS' yearly denominator data. The file includes one summary record per person with his/her date of birth, date of death (if any), sex, race, state of residence, enrollment in Part A and/or Part B, and enrollment in an HMO by month and year. In addition, there is a separate file that contains geographically-based (ZIP code level) socioeconomic information from the 1990 and 2000 Censuses and the 2008 – 2012 American Community Survey.

View or download the documentation for these files:

Last Updated: 16 May, 2019