Cancer prevention programmes in Mexico: are we doing enough?

9 January, 2020

A new article has just been published in ecancer entitled “Cancer prevention programmes in Mexico: are we doing enough?”

Nicolás Padilla-Raygoza et al discuss the current and future cancer burden in Mexico and emphasise how and why improving prevention activities is key to reducing this burden.


Cancer has increased in all the countries of the world and Mexico is no exception. The recognised risk factors for the main types of cancer are reviewed and searched through the Mexican government web pages and cancer prevention programmes to tackle the risk factors in the population. The Mexican government, a member of the World Health Organization, shows that the main approach is an early diagnosis rather than prevention, forgetting that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. Effective public programmes should be promoted to reduce preventable risk factors in the population (smoking, nutrition, obesity, diet, environmental toxicity, sedentary lifestyle) and control the non-preventable factors (genetics) if we really want to control the incidence of different types of cancer.

The article is open access and can be read for free here:

HIFA profile: Katie Foxall is Head of Publishing at eCancer, Bristol, UK. katie AT