(Radio Iowa) – One of Iowa’s most populous counties is seeing higher cancer rates than both state and national averages. A report says black men in Linn County are twice as likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer as white men, while rural residents have a higher cancer burden than urbanites.

Linn County Director of Public Health Pramod Dwivedi says there are many unknown risk factors that may impact which populations have higher cancer rates than others. “I’m not in a situation where I could tell you, what are the real risk factors,” Dwivedi says, “or the risk factors that may not be elsewhere which may be causing more cancer or the high rate of cancer incidence in our community.”

He says cancer is a major public health issue in the county, and there is an urgent need for targeted prevention efforts. Dwivedi says a variety of factors — including geography, access to health care, and air quality — may be causing the race and sex disparities being seen in the county. “As a governmental public health agency, we can do certain things with regard to following rules and regulations,” he says, “but preventing any chronic disease, including cancer, is the function of a partnership.”

Dwivedi says much of it is about educating residents on the known causes of cancer, mainly smoking and drinking, but he can’t be 100 percent certain which are the main culprits of the county’s higher cancer rates.