Cancer Prevention at Work Project

04/08/2026

Every day, health care providers work tirelessly in health centres to meet the health needs of their patients — but what about the carers themselves?

Our latest publication on Cancer Prevention at Work Project presents a study carried out between 2023 and 2025 at S.Orsola University Hospital in Bologna, Italy, in which 550 hospital workers were enrolled during occupational health surveillance.

The cross-sectional Helicobacter pylori screening revealed a prevalence of 16.6% among participants.

✳️ Read the article at

link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10552-026-02189-2

📄 Authors |

Giulia Collatuzzo, Giulia Fiorini, Matteo Pavoni, Maria Vittoria Costanzucci Paolino, Andrei Cosmin Siea, MD, Maria Zafeiratou, Laura Astolfi, Luca Magni, Tommaso Renieri, Silvia Mangiaterra, Marika D'Agostini, Nataliia Danilevskaia, Dino Vaira, and Paolo Boffetta.

27/05/2026

While the World Health Organization defines health as shaped by multiple factors, there is a growing need to better understand the resources individuals have to achieve and maintain it.

Health capital offers a way to understand how these resources influence people’s health. Within the Cancer Prevention at Work Project, this framework is being used to support the implementation of cancer prevention strategies in occupational health settings.

refers to the set of resources individuals can draw upon to maintain their health and navigate healthcare systems. However, until recently, it has been mainly explored through small-scale qualitative studies, limiting its broader application.

To address this, our recent paper in Frontiers in Public Health by Anna Schneider-Kamp, Anum Ilyas, Stine Lyngsø Beltoft, Sonja Wehberg and, Søren Askegaard, presents the Health Capital Questionnaire (HCQ)—a 56-item tool covering six dimensions:

▪️ Demographic
▪️Economic
▪️Cultural
▪️Social
▪️Interactional
▪️Behavioural

Using projective techniques with over 2,100 respondents, the study found that people consistently prioritise:

✳️ Relationships with family members
✳️ Ability to manage stress
✳️ Family health history

These findings highlight that social relationships and mental resilience are perceived as central health resources, offering important insights for the design of effective prevention strategies.

📄 Read the full article and access the questionnaire here:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1829250/full

14/05/2026

The National Public Health Conference: "Partnerships for Health – Integrated Strategies for Reducing the Burden of Disease" took place between April 27–28, 2026, in Craiova. This inaugural edition was organized by our partner the National Institute of Public Health (INSP), through the Craiova Regional Center for Public Health, serving as a dedicated platform for dialogue and collaboration aimed at enhancing population health.

The event brought together public health experts, hospital representatives, NGOs, and local authorities, fostering integrated solutions to mitigate the impact of disease across Romania.

Over the two-day session, the conference highlighted critical themes, including:
- The evolution of primary mortality causes at the national level.
- Advancing person-centered oncological screening in Romania.
- Knowledge and attitudes toward cancer prevention – Data-driven communication strategies.

During the presentation sessions, the project team—comprising Dr. Felicia Popescu (Occupational Medicine Specialist), Dr. Silvia Teodorescu (Public Health Specialist), Angelica Voinoiu (Engineer), and Dr. Andra Neamtu (Project Manager)—disseminated key materials and insights regarding the Prevention at Work Project (CPW).

✳️ Dr. Felicia Popescu delivered the presentation: “From Detection to Prevention: The Role of Hepatitis C Screening within the Cancer Prevention at Work (CPW) Project.” This presentation successfully communicated the project's scope, objectives, ongoing activities, and the milestones achieved to date.

The discussions revealed a high level of interest among participants regarding the CPW project, its expected outcomes, and the practicalities of its implementation.

07/04/2026

💡 How often do we stop to consider the role of science in our everyday health decisions?

From trusting medical advice to using effective treatments, science underpins the systems we rely on—often without us even noticing.
On this , under the theme “Together for health. Stand with science”, we reflect on the value of scientific collaboration in building that trust.
At Cancer Prevention at Work Project, we work to strengthen cancer prevention by integrating evidence-based approaches into occupational health systems—ensuring that prevention is not only effective, but accessible and sustainable.
✳️ Science enables us to test, evaluate and improve how we protect health. And through collaboration, it allows that knowledge to become action.

07/04/2026

💡 How often do we stop to consider the role of science in our everyday health decisions?

From trusting medical advice to using effective treatments, science underpins the systems we rely on—often without us even noticing.

On this , under the theme “Together for health. Stand with science”, we reflect on the value of scientific collaboration in building that trust.

At Cancer Prevention at Work Project, we work to strengthen cancer prevention by integrating evidence-based approaches into occupational health systems—ensuring that prevention is not only effective, but accessible and sustainable.

✳️ Science enables us to test, evaluate and improve how we protect health.�And through collaboration, it allows that knowledge to become action.

05/03/2026

✳️ Last November, the Cancer Prevention at Work Project organised an in-person awareness event in focused on Helicobacter pylori infection and its relevance to cancer prevention.

The event brought together workers and their families to learn more about the importance of diagnosing, treating and preventing H. pylori, a risk factor associated with stomach cancer.

🧩 To make the information accessible and engaging, the programme combined different outreach formats: expert , scientific , short informative and interactive activities. Participants were also able to reinforce what they had learned through questionnaires and game-based sessions.

This initiative also explored whether involving workers’ families could help increase awareness and willingness to participate in screening and treatment programmes.

🫶 The consortium would like to thank all participants for their engagement. The event was organised with the support of project partners ISPA-FINBA and WeDo | Project intelligence made easy, hosted at the Central University Hospital of Asturias in Oviedo, in collaboration with EDP Spain, and with the participation of representatives from UGT General Union of Workers of Spain.

The Cancer Prevention at Work Project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme, is researching the cost-effectiveness and social acceptance of integrating prevention of cancers associated with Helicobacter pylori, Hepatitis C virus and Human Papillomavirus into occupational health surveillance programmes.

🌐 For more information, visit:
📽️ : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T58O4Wzg4r4

Cancer Prevention at Work is an EU-funded project addressing the implementation of surveillance protocols targeting infection-related cancers

11/02/2026

🗓️ Today, 11 February, on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we reflect on this year’s global objective: shifting the focus from recommendations and reflection to showcasing existing good practices and solutions for building a more inclusive scientific community.

✅ At Cancer Prevention at Work Project (CPW), we are putting this into action with the launch of RISE-CPW (Research Independence & Sponsorship for Early-Career Researchers). This consortium programme, led by the Women Integration Board and coordinated by CPW researcher Anna Schneider-Kamp, aims to support candidates, postdoctoral researchers, research fellows, and junior faculty on their path towards research independence and leadership.

Over a period of approximately 12 months, early-career researchers – with a particular focus on women – will be mentored and supported by a diverse group of senior researchers from the Cancer Prevention at Work Project.

Initiatives like this demonstrate that practical, impactful solutions for advancing inclusion in science already exist—and that collective commitment can turn them into lasting change.

✳️ Let us continue working towards a more inclusive scientific future!

04/02/2026

Around 40% of cancer cases are preventable.

This is one of the key messages of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. As cancer continues to affect millions of people every year, prevention and early detection are becoming ever more central to reducing its impact. They matter because they can make a real difference—unsurprisingly, improving early detection of cancer is one of the Plan’s main objectives.

Behind every diagnosis there is a person and a community. This year’s World Cancer Day theme, , invites us to recognise those individual stories and reminds us that more inclusive and effective approaches start by understanding people’s different realities.

At Cancer Prevention at Work, we focus on prevention among workers and their communities. With demanding schedules and diverse needs, workers also represent a key opportunity for early intervention—particularly for detecting infections that, if left untreated, can increase cancer risk.

We are proud to be part of the Prevention and Early Detection Cluster – Implementation Research, alongside projects such as CO-CAPTAIN_EU, PREVENT EU, ONCODIR, 4P-CAN, and PIECES. Different approaches, one shared goal: preventing cancer.

On this , we thank the researchers, clinicians, managers, social workers, trade unions, patients, and many others who are part of this collective effort.

20/01/2026

💡 🫀 The workplace is a strategic environment for health promotion, able to address multiple health determinants at the same time — including cardiometabolic risk factors.

The latest publication from the Cancer Prevention at Work Project, “Effectiveness of Occupational Health Promotion Programs on Cardiometabolic Risk Factors: A Systematic Review and Three-Level Meta-Analysis,” examined 44 studies involving 49,813 workers to assess whether workplace-based health promotion programs can effectively reduce cardiometabolic risk in adult employees.

📄 ✅ And the findings are encouraging

health promotion programs were associated with significant improvements across multiple cardiometabolic indicators, including:

• Reductions in BMI, body weight, waist circumference, and body fat
• Lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure
• Improved lipid profiles, with decreased LDL and increased HDL cholesterol
• A significant reduction in smoking rates

These results reinforce the workplace as a powerful setting for prevention and support the integration of structured health promotion programs into occupational and strategies.

✍The publication authored by Alessandro Godono, Veruscka Leso, Ettore Paradisi, Elisa Carena, Maria Vittoria Picciaiola, Anna Schneider-Kamp, Catalina Ciocan, Fabrizio Bert, Franco Veglio, Paolo Boffetta, Ivo Iavicoli is now available at:

• CPW's publications section: https://cancerpreventionatwork.eu/publications/
• DOI: 10.23749/mdl.v116i6.18179

17/12/2025

🌟 Research, commitment, and care have shaped our 2025.

This year, our work has focused on preventing pathogen-related cancers among working populations, using occupational settings to extend prevention beyond the workplace and into families and communities. We remain committed to the health of workers and to the strong network of projects, institutions and research centres advancing cancer prevention and early detection through implementation research.

We also marked an important milestone for the project: we began interventions targeting Helicobacter pylori, Hepatitis C virus, and Human Papillomavirus.

At the heart of this work is care — care for workers and their communities, for prevention through awareness and timely action, and for the collaborations that make this possible. Care for all. From all of us at the Cancer Prevention at Work Project, thank you for your support throughout #2025. We wish you a restful holiday season and look forward to continuing this work together in the year ahead.