Your Disease Risk Assessment Tool

South Shore Medical Center physicians are interested in providing innovative ways for their patients to educate themselves about preventative strategies that maintain their good health. On-line assessment tools are one way to accomplish this. One such web-based tool for assessing risk was developed by Graham Colditz and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), "Your Disease Risk" is publicly available on the website www.yourdiseaserisk.wustl.edu. Over 540,000 website visitors used this computerized tool during 2003. In a user-friendly format, the tool provides users with an estimate of their risk of developing different types of diseases over the next 10 years relative to other people of the same age and sex and steps they can take to reduce their risk. After answering a few simple questions, a relative disease risk estimate is displayed graphically as demonstrated in this example graph of cancer risk:

Example of Summary Information from "Your Cancer Risk"

For colorectal cancer, the tool includes questions about family history, prior screening tests, dietary habits (red meat, fruits and vegetables), weight and height, and use of folate, aspirin, estrogen therapy, alcohol and tobacco. In addition to answering questions about the relative risk of many types of common cancers, there are risk assessment tools for diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis and stroke. Your South Shore Medical Center primary care physician is an excellent resource to discuss any questions you might have about what risk assessment results you receive. We feel strongly that our patients can make positive changes in lifestyle and take advantage of preventative measures to maintain good health with this type of information.