title: Adolescent risk-taking, cancer risk, and life course approaches to prevention.
abstract: Adolescent risk-taking may have long-term consequences for adult cancer risk. Behaviors such as smoking and sexual activity, commonly initiated during adolescence, may result--decades later--in cancer. Life course epidemiology focuses on unique vulnerabilities at specific development periods and their importance to later development of disease. A life course epidemiological perspective that integrates social and biological risk processes can help frame our understanding how specific adult cancers develop. Moreover, life course perspectives augment traditional public health approaches to prevention by emphasizing the importance of unique windows of opportunity for prevention.
authors.affiliation: Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 60 Haven Avenue, B2, New York, NY 10032, USA. js2637@columbia.edu
authors.forename: John S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Santelli
authors.forename: Kavita
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sivaramakrishnan
authors.forename: Zoe R
authors.initials: ZR
authors.lastname: Edelstein
authors.forename: Linda P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Fried
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012309:Risk-Taking