In 1973, The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program was established. The SEER Program was a sequel to two earlier National Cancer Institute (NCI) programs, the End Results Program and the Third National Cancer Survey.

Case ascertainment and data collection for the SEER Program began with January 1, 1973 diagnoses in several geographic areas of the U.S. and its territories.

The SEER Program currently includes population-based data from about 14% of the United States population and is reasonably representative of subsets of the different racial/ethnic groups residing in the United States.