IBeCHANGE - ADDRESSING PSYCHOSOCIAL AND LIFESTYLE RISK FACTORS TO PROMOTE PRIMARY CANCER PREVENTION: AN INTEGRATED PLATFORM TO PROMOTE BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE

Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan set has ambitious goals addressing key behavioral risk factors for cancer development, such as tobacco (target reduction of 30% by 2025), alcohol consumption (target reduction of 10% by 2025), unhealthy diets and physical inactivity (see also the HealthyLifestyle4All campaign).

As “about 40% of cancer cases in the EU are preventable”, health promotion and preventive measures for cancer can benefit from the implementation of behavioural change (BC) and emotional management (EM) in the general population.

However, previous research and practice have generally failed to achieve sustainable BC due to two factors: 1) not taking into account recent BC concepts showing the need of personalizing interventions and techniques; 2) not considering psychosocial features and emotions (e.g. anxiety and depression), which can interfere with effective BC and increase the risk of developing cancer.The main objective of this project is to design, develop, and test the iBeChange platform, a user-focused management system that empowers people to achieve healthy and sustainable behaviors and emotions.

The iBeChange innovative system will be developed by experts from clinical and health psychology, oncology, epidemiology, ICT, data science, and the health policy.

The iBeChange project will go beyond the state of the art of sustainable BC and EM by combining practice- and evidence-based knowledge coming from clinical psychology and BC theories with the potentialities of adaptive digital technologies and artificial intelligence.

Thus, the iBeChange system will be able to dynamically observe, learn about user behaviours, and then deliver tailored and effective health interventions in a dynamic learning process.

The final goal of the iBeChnage project is to contribute to the goals of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and European Code Against Cancer by improving long-term primary cancer prevention through informing, supporting, and empowering EU citizens.This action is part of the Cancer Mission cluster of projects on ""Prevention & early detection (behavioural change)"".