Despite the progress made in the investigation and understanding of the causes of cancer, the number of cases has increased consistently in the past decades, with an estimated 20 million new cancer cases and 9.7 million cancer deaths per year worldwide in 2022 (https://gco.iarc.fr/today/en). These numbers are expected to continue to rise in the future due to ageing of the population and increase in unhealthy lifestyles, making cancer prevention an urgent challenge for health services and society.

Cancer is a complex disease that is influenced by several environmental, lifestyle and genetic factors. In the School of Public Health, we tackle this problem by investigating the link between cancer and lifestyle, nutrition, anthropometry, metabolism and environmental factors in large population studies.

The results obtained from these epidemiological studies will contribute towards the development of effective, evidence-based public health prevention strategies, ultimately making a real impact on cancer prevention. Below are some of the key research activities in this area at the School of Public Health.