Primary prevention

To address regulatory, political and societal barriers that hamper its implementation and achieve behavioral change, primary prevention research should: 

• Support implementation research to enhance the effectiveness and efficacy of prevention programmes that address well-known risk factors (tobacco, UV exposure, alcohol consumption, overweight) and if effective would substantially reduce cancer incidence throughout the EU.
• Support continued aetiological research to uncover new causes of cancer, genetic predisposition and the influence of behavioural and environmental factors.
• Support population health intervention research to develop operational strategies and policies in cancer prevention, for example new primary prevention strategies (vaccination, medical) that are less expensive and easy to implement, independent from the expenditure on health.
• Promote research to elucidate the individual and societal cognitive processes behind successful behavioural preventative interventions and to address the socioeconomic and commercial determinants of health.care in a particular country.
• Promote behavioural/nudging, area-based/territory-based/community-based intervention research linked to prevention, by engaging scientists from disciplines less represented in cancer research today, such as behavioural, communication and social sciences.
• Overall funding for prevention research must increase substantially, and new areas of research must be included.

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