Application of epidemiological findings to individuals

The role of chance in cancer causation

In the last years, the discussion about the role of chance in the causation of cancer has generated much scientific and public debate. The concept that chance, or "bad luck", as responsible for a majority of the variation of cancer incidence, may be misleading, possibly causing an underestimation of the role played by known risk factors. In this commentary we discuss how host and external factors interact with chance in cancer causation in different ways, and provide examples of situations where chance appears to play only a minor role on cancer onset.

Application of P4 (Predictive, Preventive, Personalized, Participatory) Approach to Occupational Medicine

In recent years there has been a growth in the role of prevention in controlling the disease burden. Increasing efforts have been conveyed in the screening implementation and public health policies, and the spreading knowledge on risk factors reflects on major attention to health checks. Despite this, lifestyle changes are difficult to be adopted and the adherence to current public health services like screening and vaccinations remains suboptimal. Additionally, the prevalence and outcome of different chronic diseases and cancers is burdened by social disparities. P4 [predictive, preventive, personalized, participatory] medicine is the conceptualization of a new health care model, based on multidimensional data and machine-learning algorithms in order to develop public health intervention and monitoring the health status of the population with focus on wellbeing and healthy ageing. Each of the characteristics of P4 medicine is relevant to occupational medicine, and indeed the P4 approach appears to be particularly relevant to this discipline. In this review, we discuss the potential applications of P4 to occupational medicine, showing examples of its introduction on workplaces and hypothesizing its further implementation at the occupational level.