One in four M’sians could get dreaded disease

Star: ACCORDING to statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO), in 2000 there were 10.1 million new cases diagnosed, adding to the 22.4 million who were already living with cancer, and there were 6.2 million cancer-related deaths.
And in 2020, there could be almost a 50% increase in the number of cases, with 15.7 million newly diagnosed cases.
In Malaysia, according to the Malaysia National Cancer Registry (2002), in terms of risk, one in four Malaysians will get cancer in their lifetime. This means that out of the estimated 24,526,500 people in Malaysia, 6,131,625 are at risk of developing some sort of cancer during their lifetime (statistics from Rural Development Ministry, 2002).
As such, it is important that everyone, including children, understands and is informed about cancer.

Suzie’s proposed research aims to create such awareness, and so she has targeted her research to:
·investigate best practices and methods as employed by several reputable cancer centres and support mechanisms in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Japan, India and Malaysia in providing children with information of their parent's cancer diagnosis;
·understand Malaysian children's information-seeking behaviour and devise a set of core and generic data according to context, type, scope, platform and method of dissemination that is sensitive to their demographic circumstances.
·develop a test for information solutions that would lead to a national cancer agenda in Malaysia, in particular the information strategies that can help children to become informed via appropriate channels.