E-poster Presentation 2014 World Cancer Congress

The added value of primary prevention to the battle against cancer (#1070)

Tim Rombouts 1
  1. KWF Kankerbestrijding / Dutch Cancer Society, Utrecht, Netherlands

Background and Context:

The Dutch Cancer Society (DCS) spends traditionally about 80% of her budget on cancer research, the other 20% is spent on prevention and patient support. Over the last years, several big movements took place within the organization. Among others, the organization was restructured, which led to a separate dedicated ‘prevention team’. Also, the 80-20 budget is more and more shifting from research towards implementation. The prevention team was forced to evaluate her activities and focus on the activities that (most efficiently) add value to the battle against cancer.


Team prevention: ‘less cancer’ (emphasis on: ‘less cancer mortality’)


Involving experts from the field and underpin any action taken

Programme/Policy Process:

Over 30 actors and experts in the field (researchers, policy advisors, etc) were interviewed (qualitative research). The question asked: Within the field of (primary) prevention, what should DCS focus on, taking into account their goal and other actors in the field?’

The experts advice: be in the lead for ‘smoking’, be an expert on ‘obesity, alcohol, nutrition, physical inactivity and sun exposure’, and collaborate with others actors in the field. Focus on the first steps in the prevention chain (environment measures and awareness).

Subsequently, (among other things) the following activities were performed:
- PAF-study: The fraction of cancer attributable to lifestyle in The Netherlands.
- Desk-research: effectiveness of interventions.

Outcomes/What was learned:

Above-mentioned pre-work led to an answer to the questions: what do the individual risk factors add to the total burden of cancer? Where would DCS’s added value be in decreasing the prevalence of the risk factors?

Risk factors DCS should focus on:
 Smoking:           awareness (++) Environment measures (++)

Obesity1:           environment measures (+)

Sun exposure:   awareness (+)

Within the different risk factors the activities should focus on:
Smoking:         MPOWER-model (FCTC)
Obesity:           Ban on Kids marketing (agenda-setting)
Sun exposure:  Awareness campaign

"1: Obesity also covers nutrition, alcohol and physical inactivity