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Epigeneti-What? Approaches on Translating Research for Primary Breast Cancer Prevention

In fiscal year 2017, the National Cancer Institute devoted more than a half billion dollars to breast cancer research. Since 2012, the total investment has been more than $3 billion. Despite this significant investment, breast cancer still has no known immediate causes as it generally develops over...

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Autores principales: Perrault, Evan K., Hildenbrand, Grace M., Nyaga, Robert G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6473042/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31032228
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2019.00267
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author Perrault, Evan K.
Hildenbrand, Grace M.
Nyaga, Robert G.
author_facet Perrault, Evan K.
Hildenbrand, Grace M.
Nyaga, Robert G.
author_sort Perrault, Evan K.
collection PubMed
description In fiscal year 2017, the National Cancer Institute devoted more than a half billion dollars to breast cancer research. Since 2012, the total investment has been more than $3 billion. Despite this significant investment, breast cancer still has no known immediate causes as it generally develops over the life course. Therefore, research is unable to provide the public any sort of magic bullet, or conclusive link between certain environmental exposures and the development of breast cancer later in life. What research is only able to report are likelihoods—possible links—things people might want to consider avoiding or doing in their everyday lives to reduce their future risks of developing breast cancer. This abundance of rigorously performed, albeit causally inconclusive, research focused on “plausible” links poses a challenge for health communicators who are tasked with seeking to find ways to translate this science into advice that people can act upon today. However, if society must wait for the science to provide 100% conclusive evidence before anyone ever takes action, how many lives could have been saved in the interim? Therefore, we advocate a two-pronged approach to translating scientific findings regarding environmental exposures and breast cancer prevention: a bottom-up approach—focused on informing the lay public and individuals, while simultaneously performing a top-down approach—focused on influencing policymakers. The current perspective analyzes the strengths and weaknesses to both of these approaches, and encourages scientists to work closely with health communicators to develop theoretically-driven strategies to drive positive changes over time.
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spelling pubmed-64730422019-04-26 Epigeneti-What? Approaches on Translating Research for Primary Breast Cancer Prevention Perrault, Evan K. Hildenbrand, Grace M. Nyaga, Robert G. Front Oncol Oncology In fiscal year 2017, the National Cancer Institute devoted more than a half billion dollars to breast cancer research. Since 2012, the total investment has been more than $3 billion. Despite this significant investment, breast cancer still has no known immediate causes as it generally develops over the life course. Therefore, research is unable to provide the public any sort of magic bullet, or conclusive link between certain environmental exposures and the development of breast cancer later in life. What research is only able to report are likelihoods—possible links—things people might want to consider avoiding or doing in their everyday lives to reduce their future risks of developing breast cancer. This abundance of rigorously performed, albeit causally inconclusive, research focused on “plausible” links poses a challenge for health communicators who are tasked with seeking to find ways to translate this science into advice that people can act upon today. However, if society must wait for the science to provide 100% conclusive evidence before anyone ever takes action, how many lives could have been saved in the interim? Therefore, we advocate a two-pronged approach to translating scientific findings regarding environmental exposures and breast cancer prevention: a bottom-up approach—focused on informing the lay public and individuals, while simultaneously performing a top-down approach—focused on influencing policymakers. The current perspective analyzes the strengths and weaknesses to both of these approaches, and encourages scientists to work closely with health communicators to develop theoretically-driven strategies to drive positive changes over time. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6473042/ /pubmed/31032228 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2019.00267 Text en Copyright © 2019 Perrault, Hildenbrand and Nyaga. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Oncology
Perrault, Evan K.
Hildenbrand, Grace M.
Nyaga, Robert G.
Epigeneti-What? Approaches on Translating Research for Primary Breast Cancer Prevention
title Epigeneti-What? Approaches on Translating Research for Primary Breast Cancer Prevention
title_full Epigeneti-What? Approaches on Translating Research for Primary Breast Cancer Prevention
title_fullStr Epigeneti-What? Approaches on Translating Research for Primary Breast Cancer Prevention
title_full_unstemmed Epigeneti-What? Approaches on Translating Research for Primary Breast Cancer Prevention
title_short Epigeneti-What? Approaches on Translating Research for Primary Breast Cancer Prevention
title_sort epigeneti-what? approaches on translating research for primary breast cancer prevention
topic Oncology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6473042/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31032228
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2019.00267
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