Over 600,000 Swedes are today, or have previously been, ill with cancer. Cancer is expected to soon surpass heart and cardiovascular diseases as the most common cause of death among women in Sweden.
With the help of a new analysis tool, the National Board of Health and Welfare has looked at how different groups are affected by the disease, and the differences are clear. Men, women, the rich and the poor are affected in different ways.
Targeted Interventions
Mef Nilbert is a cancer expert at the National Board of Health and Welfare and a chief physician in oncology. She believes that the tool creates a factual basis for healthcare to stand on.
Cancer is a disease that moves in relation to socioeconomic conditions. The differences signal an inequality that we must talk more about, she says, and continues:
With the help of the tool, targeted interventions can be implemented and preventive work can be done.
The statistics show that the better the socioeconomic conditions, the higher the incidence of skin cancer in 2023. Something that can be linked to sun habits. The pattern for lung cancer shows the opposite.
Lung cancer is more common among the low-educated, which can be linked to smoking, says Mef Nilbert.
The tool is based on various registers, and the data can then be analyzed based on, for example, age or gender. The hope is to be able to map more groups in the future.
Today, there is a lack of statistics on country of birth. We will fill in with facts going forward.
Another Tool
The Public Health Agency, the Cancer Foundation, and the Heart-Lung Foundation have also developed a new tool.
We are looking at the connections between risk factors, such as diet or obesity, and disease cases. The tool can create scenarios for how the development will look like in the future, says Lisa Klefbom, interest policy expert at the Cancer Foundation.
The idea is that the scenarios can be used as a basis for politicians and other decision-makers in society.
For example, the tool can show how much healthcare costs would decrease if we ate better than we do today, she says.
The statistics cover the period 1970-2023.
Generally, the incidence of cancer has increased, but mortality has decreased. This applies to both women and men.
The most common cancer disease is breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.
Malignant melanoma, the most severe form of skin cancer, is the cancer disease that has increased the most. Since the 1970s, it has increased by 500 percent.
