Reduce My Risk of Cancer

[David Baxter PhD]

Reduce My Risk
Oncolink.org
Retrieved September 4, 2019

Get Started
The following questionnaire is comprehensive and asks about your habits, lifestyle and health history. Please be aware that your answers will be kept private. We do not ask for identifiable information, such as name or date of birth. The more accurately you answer the questions, the more complete your Reduce My Risk profile will be. This questionnaire will take 5-7 minutes to complete.

Begin Questionnaire

You may have come to OncoLink searching for information for your friend or family member who has a diagnosis of cancer. At the same time you may be wondering about your own risk of cancer. Why them? Could it be me? What can I do differently to lower my risk of developing cancer?

Reduce My Risk is a tool to help you learn about factors that affect your personal risk of many types of cancer and - most importantly - what you can do to decrease that risk.

What do you do with the information I provide?
We collect the answers people provide to be used in future development of the program and research related to use of such a program. Your use of the program is completely voluntary. We will not ask you for any personally identifiable information. We collect internet protocol (IP) addresses (a numerical label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, printer) in a computer network using the Internet) in order to remove duplicate entries from our data analysis. However, the IP address is removed from the data after duplicates are removed and is not linked to the responses of a user. If you choose to email your report to yourself, be advised that we do not store your email address or use it for anything other than delivering the report. Because of this, we cannot respond to any questions submitted in the user satisfaction survey at the end of the program. If you require assistance, please send us your comment or question.

Understanding Cancer Risk
The concept of cancer risk is very complex. In fact, some cancer researchers spend their entire career analyzing risk and developing ways to quantify it. While you may think about cancer risk as "what is the chance I will develop cancer?", a researcher thinks of how risk applies to entire populations and uses complex formulas to determine this risk. It is not necessary to understand the science of risk to reduce your own risk. Understanding the basics of cancer risk will help you better interpret what this tool tells you, what your healthcare providers tell you, or what you hear in the news.

• Cancer risk in a nutshell is the chance that you will develop a cancer.
• Many factors play into your risk; do you smoke?, do you use a tanning booth?, did your mother have cancer?
• Some factors are things you can change such as smoking. We call these modifiable risk factors.
• Some factors you cannot change, such as your family history. These are called unmodifiable risk factors.
• Some risk factors increase the chance of one type of cancer, while others can increase the risk of several types.
• This program is designed to identify your risk factors, both modifiable and unmodifiable, and help you focus on things you can change or do to reduce your risk.

Why can't you tell me my risk of getting cancer in a number?
Unfortunately, cancer risk is not an exact science. Not every risk factor affects every person in the same way and different risk factors carry different weight. It is also important to remember that cancer is not just one disease, but many different diseases. Your risk factors likely increase your risk of different cancers than your friend's risk factors. Your genetic makeup is an important part of your risk, though researchers don't have a complete understanding of this yet. Research that helps determine your risk is based on studies of entire populations, and therefore any percentage chance of getting cancer is just an estimate and no guarantee. For this reason, Reduce My Risk will not focus on determining your exact level of risk, but will help you identify things you can do to decrease your overall cancer risk.

 

[Daniel E.]

COVID Won’t End Up Like the Flu. It Will Be Like Smoking.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths, from either tobacco or the pandemic, could be prevented with a single behavioral change.

www.theatlantic.com

Choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID is, right now, a modifiable health risk on par with smoking, which kills more than 400,000 people each year in the United States...

Even in absolute numbers, America’s unvaccinated and current-smoker populations seem to match up rather well: Right now, the CDC pegs them at 13 percent and 14 percent of all U.S. adults, respectively, and both groups are likely to be poorer and less educated.

In either context, public-health campaigns must reckon with the very difficult task of changing people’s behavior. Anti-smoking efforts, for example, have tried to incentivize good health choices and disincentivize bad ones, whether through cash payments to people who quit, gruesome visual warnings on cigarette packs, taxes, smoke-free zones, or employer smoking bans. Over the past 50 years, this crusade has very slowly but consistently driven change: Nearly half of Americans used to smoke; now only about one in seven does. Hundreds of thousands of lung-cancer deaths have been averted in the process...

 

[Daniel E.]

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/2006/pdfs/protect-from-shs.pdf

The Surgeon General has concluded that the only way to fully protect yourself and your loved ones from the dangers of secondhand smoke is through 100% smoke-free environments. Opening a window, sitting in a separate area, or using ventilation, air conditioning, or a fan cannot eliminate secondhand smoke exposure.

If you are a smoker, the single best way to protect your family from secondhand smoke is to quit smoking. In the meantime, you can protect your family by making your home and vehicles smoke-free and only smoking outside. A smoke-free home rule can also help you quit smoking.