n less than 10 minutes, you can find out your personalized risk for developing breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, kidney, and skin cancers with an online risk assessment tool called My CancerIQ.

With technology available at our fingertips, it’s often difficult to know what health information recourses you can trust. My CancerIQ is an evidence-based website that was developed in partnership by Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term care and Cancer Care Ontario. The recourse can help you to make healthy changes in your life to prevent chronic diseases, like cancer.

All questions asked throughout the My CancerIQ assessments address factors or behaviours that research has shown are linked to the risk of developing a specific type of cancer. As you work through the assessments, you’ll learn:

• What factors help to keep your risk of cancer down
• What factors increase your risk of developing cancer
• What you can do to manage or reduce your risk, including links to helpful recourses
• Where appropriate, you’ll learn whether you should be screened for particular types of cancer, such as colorectal, cervical, and breast cancer. If screening is an option, your final assessment report will also give you links to screening recourses in your community. 

What’s unique about this tool is that it uses Ontario data. When you complete one of the My CancerIQ questionnaires, you get a personalized report that highlights your risk of developing that type of cancer in comparison to Ontarians of the same sex who are 40 years and over. More importantly though, your report will also provide you with information about how you can prevent cancer by making specific lifestyle changes. 

As many as half of all cancers in Ontario could be prevented by eliminating or reducing risk factors. While specific cancer rates may vary across the province, what all of the cancers included in the My CancerIQ tool have in common is that they have modifiable risk factors that can be affected by lifestyle. In Northwestern Ontario, breast, colorectal, and lung cancer rates are higher than provincial averages, and all three have modifiable risk factors that we can learn about using My CancerIQ. 

Since the launch of My CancerIQ in early 2015, more than 146,000 Ontarians have learned about their cancer risk and how to lower it. The reports you receive can be printed, emailed, or saved so you can use them as a conversation started with your health care provider, family members, and friends.