Monitoring Survey of Cancer Risk Factors and Health System Response in Northeast Region, Mizoram

The incidence of mortality and cumulative risk of developing cancer has been consistently high in the northeastern Region of India. Cancer is among the leading causes of death in Mizoram.

This survey is an approach to implement a baseline monitoring system to drive us in understanding the linkage between exposures to risk factors, other noncommunicable diseases, and cancer incidence.

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 2880 households from 60 primary sampling units who were selected using a multistage cluster sampling technique. The data were collected using household level interview, adult interview, cancer patient interview, and health facility interview.

Nearly half of the respondents had a clustering of >3 cancer risk factors. The prevalence of current tobacco use (smoked or smokeless) was as high as 77.1%. Over 80% of the respondents consumed fermented products. Nearly half of the respondents were prehypertensive. 35.9% of the respondents were overweight. Nearly 41.3% of the respondents had central obesity. Around 42.8% of the respondents were aware of cancer screening. Less than 25% of the surveyed primary health cares provided cancer screening services.

The high prevalence of cancer risk factors underscores the urgent need for comprehensive and sustained efforts toward prevention, education, and intervention. The challenges posed by a poor health system for cancer prevention are grave and demand urgent attention from all stakeholders involved in health-care delivery.