Calculating the risk of disease

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7459.237-a

BMJ 2004;329:237 (24 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7459.237-a

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Calculating the risk of disease

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Online tools for working out the risk of individual diseasesare almost as old as the internet. The web is full of sitesdevoted to assessing people's risk of cardiovascular disease,for example. But now the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention(part of Harvard School of Public Health) has produced a sitedesigned to calculate the risk of five of the most importantdisease groups in the United States.

Launched last month, Your Disease Risk (www.yourdiseaserisk.harvard.edu)is an expanded version of the centre's cancer risk assessmentwebsite; in addition to the 12 cancers covered in the originalsite, it now also includes heart disease, stroke, diabetes,and osteoporosis.

The site is an interactive educational tool that seeks to encouragehealthy lifestyles, making a quick and dirty assessment of people'seating, drinking, and exercise habits, and offering personalisedtips for disease prevention. Visitors choose their "disease,"fill in . . . [Full text of this article]

Giulio Bognolo, editorial registrar

BMJ gbognolo@bmj.com