Oral Presentation Skin Cancer 2024

Cancer Risk Calculator: a tool to help people understand modifiable behaviours that can reduce cancer risk, including skin cancer.  (#45)

Grant Brown 1
  1. Cancer Council Queensland, Fortitude Valley, QUEENSLAND, Australia

Australia has the world’s highest skin cancer rates1, with Queensland known as the skin cancer capital of the world. Yet a high proportion of skin cancers are preventable through appropriate sun protection from ultraviolet (UV) radiation2. To improve understanding of lifestyle behaviours that can increase risk of certain cancers, Cancer Council Queensland developed the Cancer Risk Calculator, first launched in 2020, with over 50,000 users by early 2024. The Cancer Risk Calculator is an online, interactive tool that asks lifestyle questions to identify current behaviours that can increase risk of certain cancers. The Cancer Risk Calculator asks a series of lifestyle questions including questions about UV, sun and skin check behaviours. The Cancer Risk Calculator does not calculate someone’s risk of getting cancer, but how much they are currently reducing their risk through lifestyle choices. The target population is people aged 18 and above, and provides recommendations based on national guidelines and leading cancer research. In 2023 Cancer Council Queensland began redevelopment of the Cancer Risk Calculator. The updated Cancer Risk Calculator was launched in March 2024, with over 8,000 people completing the new Cancer Risk Calculator in the first 6 weeks. Preliminary results and insights from the UV, sun and skin check behaviours will be presented and we will discuss the successes, learnings, program design and future implications.  

  1. 1. Ferlay J, Ervik M, Lam F, Colombet M, Mery L, Pineros M, et al.. Global Cancer Observatory: Cancer Today. [homepage on the internet] Lyon, France: International Agency for Research on Cancer; 2018 [cited 2020 Apr 24]. Available from: https://gco.iarc.fr/today.
  2. 2. Olsen CM, Wilson LF, Green AC, Bain CJ, Fritschi L, Neale RE, et al. Cancers in Australia attributable to exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation and prevented by regular sunscreen use. Aust N Z J Public Health 2015 Oct;39(5):471-6 Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26437734.