Launched at the end of June, Your Disease Risk has attracted news coverage from some of media’s biggest outlets, including ABCNews.com, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian (U.K.), and the Wall Street Journal. Major health web sites, such as those for the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society, have linked to Your Disease Risk, as have other diverse sites. As of August 24, the web site had recorded more than 31,000,000 hits and nearly 3,400,000 page views from more than 243,000 visitor sessions.

The new web site is an outgrowth of Your Cancer Risk, launched in 2000 by HSPH Professors Graham Colditz, Karen Emmons, and David Hunter. Visited by millions of users, that site allowed individuals to assess their risk of developing 12 types of cancer and to get personalized tips for prevention. Its success–coupled with the fact that cancer has many of the same risk factors as other chronic diseases–led HCCP to expand its Internet offerings.

Your Disease Risk offers users the opportunity to assess their risk of not only cancer but also heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and osteoporosis. After completing a brief questionnaire, users are given their risk profile for a specific disease, along with detailed information on lifestyle changes they can make to lower their risk.

"We have tried to maintain a very positive tone throughout the site because we want users to keep up good behaviors while also increasing healthy lifestyle practices," said project manager Hank Dart.

Your Disease Risk is based on a scientific review conducted by faculty, clinicians, and researchers from HSPH and HMS. These experts evaluated the epidemiological and clinical evidence available for each disease and categorized risk factors as being "definitely," "probably," or "possibly" related, explained Colditz, director of HCCP and a principal investigator of the Nurses’ Health Study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. They then assessed the relationships between the factors and the risk for developing disease.

During this process, HCCP’s associate director, Cynthia Stein, played a key role in gathering the scientific information that is the basis of Your Disease Risk. For her, much of risk reduction comes down to changing lifestyles, both as individuals and as a society. "Even though some risk factors cannot be altered, like age and family history, people can still lower their risk by making healthy changes in their everyday lives," said Stein. "Of course, these changes are more than just a matter of personal choice. Our ability to live well is also influenced by our physical and social surroundings. For this reason, Your Disease Risk offers people tips on what they can do individually to lower their risk and also what they can do to help support healthy lifestyles in their communities."

HCCP is monitoring scientific literature to keep the site as up to date as possible, said Colditz. Asked if plans were under way to include additional diseases, he said that the web site has an architectural infrastructure in place for expansion. He added, "At this point, we are looking forward more to expanding use of the current site in the clinical setting."

A new Spanish-language version of Your Disease Risk is in the works, and plans are under way to tailor the information to a younger audience. Through arrangements with universities in other countries, Your Disease Risk will soon be translated into Hebrew, Norwegian, Canadian French, and other languages.

"The web site is evolving," said Michelle Samplin-Salgado, communications manager for HCCP, "and much of that evolution is being guided by feedback we receive about the site–both from our colleagues and the users themselves. Their insights and thoughtful responses to the site help ensure that we continue to meet the public’s need for reliable information about disease prevention."

--PHC