(ABC 6 News) — Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the Hawkeye State as two out of five Iowans will receive a diagnosis in their lifetime.

On Tuesday, a virtual meeting in Cerro Gordo county connected survivors and experts with a 99-county effort to beat the burden that cancer has on so many lives and understand why Iowa’s cancer rates are so high.

“This is really a living document that we can all use to help identify ways that we can work towards cancer control in Iowa. We often get the question, you know, Iowa has high rates of cancer. Is that just because we have more folks that are older in our state? And the answer is no, we’ve actually taken that into account when we do our age adjusted rates,” said Dr. Sarah Nash, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa.

If there is a sliver of good news, it is that the mortality rate of cancer is dropping. Since there are more survivors of cancer, the Iowa Cancer Registry is conducting more research than ever before.