March is the month dedicated to colorectal cancer. The European Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month (ECCAM) was established at the request of the international advocacy group Digestive Cancers Europe (DCE), which brings together digestive tract cancer patient associations active across Europe.
Every year the DCE promotes a communication campaign to raise awareness of colorectal cancer: for 2024 the theme of the campaign is physical activity as a habit to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer.
To promote protective behaviors against cancer and at the same time reduce social inequalities in prevention, the BUMPER - Boosting the Usability of the european union Mobile aPp for cancEr pRevention project is underway, funded by the European Commission, which aims to support and direct the development and dissemination of an app for the promotion of the European Code Against Cancer, also guaranteeing equity in access.
As part of BUMPER, the CPO carries out the role of scientific validation of the contents. The app connected to the project, completely free, will be available by the end of 2024, with multiple resources dedicated to promoting healthy lifestyles including physical activity. To find out more about the CPO's activity within BUMPER, consult the sheet.
The Prevention Laboratory, conducted by the CPO, provides a SIMULATOR based on a predictive model for the comparison of the benefits, costs and risks of different cancer prevention intervention scenarios, measured on a comparable metric between the different options, i.e. disability -adjusted life years (DALYs) and their economic value.
This tool allows us to estimate the DALYs that can be avoided over time thanks to the implementation of some interventions, for example the promotion of physical activity, selected based on their effectiveness; It also provides estimates of the cost (initial investment) necessary for the implementation of the interventions on the population selected as the target and the return on the investment over time (up to 20 years).