It's not enough to talk about health - you have to lead by example. Prof. Koczkodaj on cancer prevention from an early age

Professor, none of us is really guaranteed not to get cancer, but each of us can do something to reduce this risk. What preventive measures can be implemented from an early age?

When it comes to oncology prevention and any prevention in general, starting as young as possible makes the most sense. Looking at oncology prevention strictly, tobacco prevention is very important. And it may sound like a truism, but the best way to protect the young population, the young generation from these very negative effects of exposure to tobacco smoke is simply to protect them from tobacco and nicotine initiation. In Poland, unfortunately, still more than 2/3 of cancer deaths are caused by exposure to tobacco smoke, which is an alarming result, considering that we have nearly 100,000 cancer deaths per year. We certainly need to emphasize the importance of education in this regard.

A very important issue is the results of the surveys we are observing, the results of trends, among other things, that unfortunately about 11% of boys, 12% of girls aged 13-15 use cigarettes every day. These are the results of the 2022 Global Youth Tobacco Survey, a large population-based survey conducted in Poland. We have another disturbing trend that shows us the exceptional popularity of new tobacco and nicotine products among the youngest. And here again I will refer to the results of this study. When it comes to heated tobacco, it is 10% each in both the boy population and the girl population: these are the everyday users. On the other hand, if we look at e-cigarettes, there is a significantly higher percentage here, and it is as high as 21% of boys and 23% of girls who use e-cigarettes on a daily basis. Unfortunately, these products, both new tobacco and nicotine products, are very often a prelude to the use of traditional cigarettes.

That is, education, education and more education, but how to educate children and young people? How to convince them that lifestyle really translates into future health? What is the role of the school here? Is this school a place that supports the healthy development of children in all respects, or does it unfortunately perpetuate bad habits?

Here is the key role of what educational measures we take. I think that rather a talking professor is not the best solution, while it is necessary to show a good example.

That is, we see in all sorts of observational studies on large populations that it is indeed the example that children observe, both at school and at home, that matters most, because they in a way repeat what they see in their immediate environment. Of course, we would like to see such a phenomenon as health-promoting schools, smoke-free schools. We have a little more influence on that than what happens in individual homes. Yet, through social campaigns we can promote various health behaviors. We have all sorts of research results that show the impact of social campaigns of such a continuous, multi-year kind, with permanent funding, which actually raise the level of public awareness. Simply put, this education should start as early as possible. It should take place both at school and at home, so that we can see that population effect that we want in public health, for example, in the case of HPV vaccination. We should have a significantly higher vaccination rate so that this effect in the case of cancers, not only cervical cancer, but other HPV-related cancers, for example, head and neck cancers, will be seen in those years of several and even several decades, because this is the time perspective of the health effect of this solution.