Preventive healthcare For University Employees: New Program for Cancer Prevention

Heidelberg University wants to broaden the preventive healthcare of its employees with a new program on cancer prevention and early detection. The program by Univital, the university health management, is intended to assist all staff at Ruperto Carola to gain sound information about cancer risks and take up opportunities for preventive action. The program will open with an online presentation by Dr Ursula Will on the topic of “Healthy Living – Preventing Cancer? The Possibilities and Limitations of a Healthy Lifestyle”. The talk will take place in German on Thursday 13 November, starting at 11.30am. It will be streamed in English on Thursday 18 November, starting at 12.30pm.

Around 500,000 people are diagnosed with cancer in Germany every year, about a third of whom are of working age. “Yet about half of all cancer cases could, according to current knowledge, be avoided through preventive behavior,” underlines Dr Mona Kellner, project leader of Univital. Dr Will, medical director of the Prevention Clinic at the National Cancer Prevention Center Heidelberg, will explain in her presentation what exactly constitutes a healthy lifestyle able to reduce the personal risk of cancer. Afterwards listeners will have an opportunity to ask questions.

The prevention program will be continued next year. In March 2026 the topic of colon cancer will be the first focus in several events. In May follows a campaign around the topic of smoking and nicotine addiction; June will see activities to raise awareness and take precautionary action to prevent skin cancer, and October will focus on events and active interventions on the topic of breast cancer. Univital will post information about all the events in the program on its website. 

The new program on health promotion was developed by Univital in cooperation with a company specializing in occupational cancer prevention and early detection.