My CancerIQ is a free online tool that helps you learn about your risk of getting six common types of cancer: breast, colon, cervical, lung, kidney and melanoma (skin cancer). The tool is available in English and French, so you can use it wherever and whenever you want.

Through its user-friendly website, the tool asks a series of questions about lifestyle choices, family history and other factors and behaviours that research shows are linked to the risk of getting cancer. Based on the information you give, the tool gives you a personalized assessment of your risk for certain cancers and a health action plan with information on how to help prevent these cancers. You will also find out whether you can get checked (screened) for lung, breast, colon or cervical cancer, and get links to Ontario’s cancer screening program resources. Screening can help find abnormal cell changes before they become cancer or find cancer early, when treatment has a better chance of working.

The tool cannot tell you if you have cancer or will get cancer, but it can tell you how to help lower your cancer risk and live a healthier life.

You will also find general information on cancer risk factors and prevention in our About Cancer Risk section.

To find out more about My CancerIQ and its cancer risk assessments, please visit the About My CancerIQ page.

My CancerIQ is designed for people in Ontario. The individual cancer risk assessments are based on highly respected international cancer risk algorithms designed for each type of cancer (for example, breast or kidney). The algorithms were then adapted by the scientists at Ontario Health to use the latest data on cancer rates in Ontario. Results are calculated based on the population of Ontario, so they may be different from other online risk assessment tools that may use different data. The health action plan gives you information about local (for example, Ontario) resources wherever possible.

Make sure you have the latest versions of one of the following browsers:

• Microsoft Edge
• Google Chrome
• Safari
• Mozilla Firefox

The website can also be used on mobile phone and tablet. If you are having trouble viewing the content on your mobile phone or tablet, please switch to a desktop computer.

Cancer risk assessments will be updated if there are changes to Ontario cancer screening guidelines or if new research on risk factors becomes available. There are currently no plans to add new assessments.

Ontario Health takes your privacy seriously.

While doing a cancer risk assessment, your answers will be kept so you can go back and see them. If you decide to do another assessment during the same browser session, the site will remember the answers you already gave so you do not have to enter them twice (for example, your age). As soon as you close your browser, your answers and assessment results will be deleted.

You may choose to save or print your results, or email them as a PDF file with a password. In all of these cases, Ontario Health will only keep your data for as long as it takes to provide you with your risk assessment report.

After doing an assessment, if you choose to do our 2-minute feedback survey, you will not be asked for any identifying information. Your answers to the survey questions will be completely anonymous, which means no one will know which answers are yours.

For more information on how we keep your personal information safe, please read our Terms of Use page.

Ontario Health is an “institution” under the Ontario Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). Part III of FIPPA regulates Ontario Health’s collection, use and disclosure of “personal information,” which includes your personal email address, the answers you provide to us by using our cancer risk assessment tool and your cancer risk assessment report.

Under Part III of FIPPA, Ontario Health may only collect personal information if the collection is “necessary to the proper administration of a lawfully authorized activity” (FIPPA, s. 38(2)). One of Ontario Health’s objectives under the Connecting Care Act (CCA) is knowledge dissemination (CCA, s. 6(b)(v)). Ontario Health’s collection of personal information is necessary to achieve this objective.

Review the FIPPA and the CCA.

Ontario Health collects your personal information to help you use the My CancerIQ website, including for the following reasons:

• Ontario Health collects your answers to cancer risk assessment questions to give you a personalized assessment of your risk. Collecting your answers to questions about sex and age allows us to track use of the website.
• At your request, Ontario Health collects your email address to send you a personalized risk assessment report and health action plan.
• If you contact Ontario Health with a question or concern and provide your contact information (for example, your name and email address or telephone number), we will collect this information so we can send you a response. We will also keep a record of our response to your question or concern.

Ontario Health will not share your answers to the cancer risk assessment questions with anyone. The only exception will be answers to questions about sex and age, which will be shared with Google Analytics to track use of the website. This sex and age information is anonymous and not identifiable, which means no one will know this information is yours.

If you give us your email address so we can send you a personalized risk assessment report and health action plan by email, Ontario Health may share your email address with its email service provider, Amazon Web Services, Inc., in accordance with AWS’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for its email service, Amazon SES (Simple Email Service), as set out on Amazon Web Services’ website for SES: https://aws.amazon.com/ses/

If you share your information with us as part of the 2-minute feedback survey on My CancerIQ, your information will be subject to SurveyMonkey’s applicable privacy policies, available at surveymonkey.com/mp/legal/

Ontario Health will only keep your personal information for as long as we need it to help you use our website. The amount of time we keep it depends on (a) the type of personal information you give us and (b) the reason it was collected. For example:

• Your cancer risk assessment answers will be deleted once you finish using the My CancerIQ website.
• If you give us your email address so we can send you a copy of your cancer risk assessment, your email address will be deleted once the email has been sent.
• If you contact Ontario Health directly and give us your contact information so we can respond to your question or concern, your contact information will be kept so we can keep a record of our response to you.

All personal information kept by Ontario Health for My CancerIQ is stored electronically on a secure drive in a database or other electronic file that is separate and apart from Ontario Health’s other data holdings. Internal access to this personal information will be granted only to Ontario Health staff members who need this access to do their work (for example, if you have shared your contact information so we can respond to your question or concern). This access by Ontario Health staff members will be tracked through Ontario Health’s Logging, Monitoring and Auditing System.

Please contact an Ontario Health Client Service Representative at the My CancerIQ support line toll-free at 1-844-523-4584 (Ontario only) or write to us at:
Ontario Health Contact Centre
5-525 University Ave
Toronto, ON, M5G 2L3

You may also submit a concern or complaint about our information practices to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario at:

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
2 Bloor Street East, Suite 1400
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8
Telephone: 416-326-3333 or 1-800-387-0073
TDD/TTY: 416-325-7539

Email:info@ipc.on.ca

Cookies let websites store information on your computer so you can have access to the information later. Having cookies enabled on your browser lets your computer remember your answers to the cancer risk assessment questions while you are on My CancerIQ. It will also help automatically fill in answers you have already given in a previous assessment, so you do not have to answer the same questions again in other assessments.

Even with cookies enabled, any answers you give will be deleted as soon as you close your browser. Your information will not be stored anywhere on the Ontario Health servers and we will not be able to see it.

If you choose to share a link to a web page from My CancerIQ on social media, the only thing shared will be a generic link to that web page. People who you share the link with on social media will never see your answers to cancer risk assessment questions or your cancer risk assessment results.

All adults in Ontario can do the assessments to learn about what may affect their cancer risk. The results will be most accurate for people in Ontario age 40 and older who have never had cancer.

You can also find general information on cancer risk factors and prevention in the About Cancer Risk section.

Each assessment helps you learn about what may affect your cancer risk. After you finish answering the questions in the assessment, you will get a personalized report of your cancer risk and a health action plan with information on how to prevent the cancer you did an assessment for.

You will also find out whether you can get checked (screened) for lung, breast, colon or cervical cancer, and get links to Ontario’s cancer screening program resources. Screening can help find abnormal cell changes before they become cancer or find cancer early, when treatment has a better chance of working.

Most questions in the cancer risk assessments are about things you already know, like whether you smoke or how physically active you are.

Before starting, consider gathering details about your family cancer history. Some questions ask about family cancer history because sometimes having a close relative (parent, sibling or child) who has been diagnosed with cancer may affect your risk.

Some questions may be personal or hard to answer, like questions about sexual history, which can affect cervical cancer risk. Answering these questions will help ensure that you get a more accurate idea of your cancer risk.

It is recommended that adults in Ontario do all the My CancerIQ assessments. These assessments are for some of the most common types of cancers found in Ontario.

The source of data used in My CancerIQ risk assessments is based on people who were assigned male or female at birth. If your gender differs from your sex assigned at birth, your risk assessment results may not be accurate for you and you should talk with your doctor or nurse practitioner about your personal risk of getting cancer. You can still do the assessments if you would like to learn about possible risk factors for the cancer types on My CancerIQ.

No. Printable versions of the assessments are not available. You can only do the assessments online, but you can print out your assessment results.

The calculations we use to figure out your risk are based on studies of people who have never had cancer. If you have had cancer, you can still do a cancer risk assessment, but your results will not be accurate.

If you have symptoms that concern you or if you think you might have cancer, please talk with your doctor or nurse practitioner.

The assessments on this site are for types of cancer that cause a lot of illness and disability in Ontario.

• Lung cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in Ontario and the most common cause of cancer death.
• Colon cancer is the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer in Ontario. It is the second most common cause of cancer death in Ontario.
• Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Ontario women and the second most common cause of cancer death in Ontario women.
• Cervical cancer is not as common as colon, lung or breast cancer, but it is highly preventable.
• Melanoma is one of the most common forms of cancer in Ontario, even though it is highly preventable.
• Kidney cancer or renal carcinoma is a serious, but preventable, cancer.

The province of Ontario offers screening programs to help find possible lung, cervical, breast and colon cancers. Cancer screening is testing done on people who may have a chance of getting cancer, but who have no cancer symptoms and generally feel fine. The assessments for these cancers will help you learn about your risk factors, whether you might benefit from screening, or if you need screening earlier or more often than other people.

Although some risk factors – like drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes – can raise your risk of getting many cancers, each type of cancer has its own unique set of risk factors. The assessments are based on the latest scientific research and will help you understand specifically what might raise or lower your risk for each cancer.

Yes. Each type of cancer has its own set of risk factors. While some factors, like smoking, raise the risk of many cancers, other factors only raise the risk of one cancer. For example, sun exposure only raises the risk of skin cancer (melanoma). Depending on your age, family history, lifestyle and other factors, you may have a lower risk for some cancers and a higher risk for others.

The good news is that things you do to lower your risk for one cancer, such as eating healthy foods, quitting smoking or getting more exercise, can also lower your risk of getting other cancers and chronic diseases.

The questions in each cancer risk assessment are based on the best available scientific research on factors that are known to raise cancer risk. A risk factor is included if the research showed that it is a cause or a probable cause of cancer.

If an assessment does not include a question about something you think may affect your cancer risk, it may be because the research on that risk factor is not strong enough yet. My CancerIQ assessments are based on the best available scientific research to date, but cancers are complex diseases and new information is always being published on them. If new high-quality research on a risk factor is published, the assessment will be updated to reflect the new information.

A cancer risk assessment only includes questions about ethnicity or socioeconomic status if there is enough research linking these factors with that particular cancer. For example, the breast cancer risk assessment includes a question about Ashkenazi Jewish heritage because research shows that women with this background are more likely to carry a genetic mutation that can raise the risk of breast cancer.

If a risk factor has not been well-studied, it means there is not enough information available to justify including it in My CancerIQ. Cancers are complex diseases and new information is always being published on them. If new research on socioeconomic status or ethnicity becomes available, we will update our content to reflect the new information.

To learn more about cancer, visit the Canadian Cancer Society website.

For information and support by phone, call the Canadian Cancer Society toll-free at 1-888-939-3333, TTY 1-866-786-1934. Or call Health811 at 811 (TTY: 711). Ask about programs available through your local public health unit.

You will also find more information and resources in our About Cancer Risk section.

The guidance from Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health (2023) is based on how alcohol affects overall health, including alcohol-related injuries and other harms.

However, My CancerIQ is only about cancer risk, so its guidance is based only on cancer-related research. The research on alcohol and cancer suggests that any amount of alcohol can raise cancer risk. Alcohol may damage the DNA of cells or allow other cancer-causing substances to enter the cells more easily. To lower your risk of getting cancer from alcohol, you may want to stop drinking or drink less often.

No. The serving sizes in My CancerIQ cancer risk assessments are based on research looking at the relationship between diet and specific types of cancer, whereas Canada’s Food Guide does not focus on cancer or define serving sizes. The guide focuses instead on healthy eating patterns and plate proportions. The recommendations in Canada’s Food Guide were developed to help Canadians make food choices that meet their nutrient needs, promote health and help prevent a wide range of diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis and some types of cancer.

To find out more, talk with your doctor or nurse practitioner, or speak with a Registered Dietitian for free by calling Health811 at 811 (TTY: 711).

After you do an assessment, you will get a personalized risk assessment report and action plan. Some people find it interesting to see how their risk might change if they change certain behaviours (for example, getting more exercise).

To go back and see how changing your answers will affect your results, click the “Change your answers” button at the end of your assessment. Remember that changing an answer may mean you have to re-answer other questions as well.

Your answers will be automatically saved while you do a cancer risk assessment, but they will be deleted as soon as you close your browser. My CancerIQ will remember any answers you give during a browser session, even if you do more than 1 assessment. For example, if you enter your age in an assessment, your answer will appear in other assessments as long as you do not end your browser session.

You may choose to save or print your results, or email your results as a PDF so you can password protect it. In all of these cases, your data will not be stored anywhere on Ontario Health servers and Ontario Health will not be able to see it.

You may choose to save, email or print your results so you can read them later or share them with your doctor or nurse practitioner.

My CancerIQ does not have the ability to let you print the assessment questions.

At this time, there is no option to create a profile or store your information on My CancerIQ. But the cancer risk assessments are easy to do and it is recommended that you do them again from time to time to see how your risk may have changed.

Also, My CancerIQ will remember any answers you give during your browser session, even if you do more than 1 assessment. For example, if you enter your age in an assessment, your age will automatically appear in other assessments as long as you do not end your browser session. As soon as you close your browser, your answers and assessment results will be deleted.

The assessment results are calculated using an expert-developed risk algorithm that was tailored to the Ontario population by scientists at Ontario Health.

For more information about how your results were calculated and the limitations of that calculation, please read the About My CancerIQ page.

Yes. Talking about your results can help you and your doctor or nurse practitioner make important decisions about your health, such as whether you should get screened (checked) for cancer or make lifestyle changes. It is a great step towards creating a healthier future.

Do not forget to save, print or email your results at the end of your cancer risk assessment so you can bring them to your next appointment.

Not necessarily. Cancers are complex diseases and many people with cancer risk factors do not get cancer.

The cancer risk assessments estimate (guess) your chance of getting cancer compared to other people in Ontario of the same age and sex who have never had cancer. However, an assessment cannot predict for sure what will happen to you.

If your risk result is “higher than average,” it means your risk may be higher than most people in Ontario of the same age and sex who have never had cancer. Check your risk assessment report or talk with your doctor or nurse practitioner about what you can do to lower your risk. For example, you may be able to change some risk factors that raise your cancer risk.

For more information about how your results were calculated and the limitations of that calculation, please read the About My CancerIQ section.

Not necessarily. Cancers are complex diseases and some people who get cancer have no known risk factors. The cancer risk assessments estimate (guess) your chance of getting cancer compared to other people in Ontario of the same age and sex who have never had cancer. However, an assessment cannot predict for sure what will happen to you.

If your risk result is “lower than average,” your risk may be lower than most people in Ontario of the same age and sex who have never had cancer. But it does not mean you are not at risk of getting cancer or that your risk may not change in the future.

We recommend that you do the assessments again from time to time to see how your risk may have changed and to make sure you are still doing the right kinds of lifestyle changes.

Some of the risk factors are the same or similar for different types of cancer. For example, smoking cigarettes can raise the risk of several types of cancer because cigarette smoke has many cancer-causing substances. In other cases, risk factors may only affect a certain type of cancer (for example, sun exposure only affects skin cancer). In some cases, differences in how cancers develop may make it seem like a risk factor raises the risk of one type of cancer, but has no effect on or reduces the risk of another type of cancer.

Risk factor differences may also be caused by gaps in research on how different types of cancer develop. Cancer development is so complex that it can be hard to know how all risk factors affect it.

My CancerIQ is meant to be an educational tool to help you learn about your risk factors for certain cancers and help you lower your cancer risk. The cancer risk assessments on My CancerIQ are not meant to diagnose you or anyone else with cancer, and they cannot predict who will or will not get cancer in the future.

If you are worried because your risk is higher than you expected, you may want to talk about your results with your doctor or nurse practitioner.

If your risk is lower than you expected, it is still important to keep doing the things that are helping your risk stay low. Risk factors can also change over time. We recommend that you do the assessments again from time to time to see how your risk may have changed.

After answering questions for a specific cancer, you will get a personalized assessment of your risk and a health action plan with information on how to prevent that type of cancer.

The health action plan for some cancers (lung, breast, colon or cervical cancer) will also give you links to Ontario’s cancer screening program resources. Screening is testing done on people who may have a chance of getting cancer, but who have no cancer symptoms and generally feel fine.

You can learn more about cancer risk factors, and find general tips and resources for lowering your cancer risk, including screening program resources, in About Cancer Risk or on our Helpful Links page.