Cancer Prevention

EPI 224 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Cancer is a preventable disease, but there is substantial heterogeneity and complexity in the etiology of cancer. This leads to challenges in developing and implementing interventions to reduce individual, public health, and population health cancer burdens. This course will help students develop a framework for assessing and designing cancer prevention strategies to reduce the burden of cancer. Approaches to cancer prevention will focus on primary and secondary (screening, early detection) prevention, in addition to selected examples of tertiary prevention. The lectures and readings will examine different theoretical and practical issues around effectiveness, feasibility, and sustainability, including theories of behavior change, population vs. high-risk approaches, risk perception and communication, and barriers to success. Through problem-based learning exercises, students will review the strategies for cancer prevention in the areas of tobacco control, physical activity and obesity, cancer screening, and vaccines, in addition to other topics. We will emphasize the timing of prevention in the context of the natural history of disease etiology, precision and mechanistically-based prevention strategies, and consider population-based approaches to prevention. Strategies for prevention on multiple levels will also be examined. Students will have homework assignments to collect and apply new knowledge to case studies, which will be used to develop a cancer prevention intervention as a final project.