Thanks to the ongoing support of ABC Study participants, for more than a decade the study has been collecting information about the factors known and suspected to be associated with risk of cancer and other diseases.
The ABC Study is currently in its third wave of follow-up, running from 2025 to 2027. As part of this follow-up, participants are invited to complete a short online questionnaire and may have the opportunity to contribute valuable physical activity data by wearing a wrist-worn monitor for 7 days.
What’s involved in this wave of follow-up?
In this wave of follow-up, participants have the opportunity to update us on changes to their health and lifestyle by completing a short questionnaire. Topics include your general health, physical activity, alcohol, smoking, cancer screening and reproductive history.
Participants who complete the questionnaire may also be invited to contribute physical activity data by wearing an activity monitor (accelerometer) for seven days. These discreet, wrist-worn devices will help us capture accurate information about time spent being physically active, standing, sitting and sleeping. By harnessing the power of technology, the data collected will provide new insights into the role that everyday activities play in the development of cancer.
Thanks to the ongoing support of ABC Study participants, more than 10,000 questionnaires have already been completed and over 6,000 physical activity recordings have been collected so far. The data collected in this study allows us to contribute to the global body of knowledge on physical activity and its effect on health and wellbeing, in addition to its effect in reducing cancer risk.
Why do we ask some of the same questions again?
The ABC Study is designed to understand lifestyle factors change over time, and how that affects our risk of cancer and other aspects of health. To do this, participants are invited to complete a questionnaire approximately every three years, with many of the same questions about diet, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption. Asking some questions again allows researchers to track changes over time and build a more complete picture of the factors that influence health, wellbeing and cancer risk throughout life.
Questionnaire topics collected throughout the ABC Study
Tracking health and lifestyle over time
Prospective cohort studies, such as the ABC Study, start with a group of people who are generally healthy, assess a range of lifestyle factors, such as body size, diet and alcohol consumption, collect biological samples, and then follow them over time.
As a long-term study, the ABC Study collects information from participants to better understand the factors that influence cancer risk and other aspects of health. This includes follow-up questionnaires, to capture changes in participant’s lifestyle and health over time as well as asking some new information, not captured in previous questionnaires.
The timeline below shows how the ABC Study has evolved since recruitment and highlights the many ways participants have contributed to the study. For more information about participant recruitment and the different data collection activities undertaken throughout the study, see our Recruitment and Data Collection page.
Timeline of the ABC Study
- The Baseline study provided us a starting point, so we can compare information against follow-up studies to understand how participants health, lifestyle and other factors change over time.
- Saliva samples will be used as a source of DNA to study the link between genetics and the development of cancer and other diseases.
- Blood samples will allow researchers to examine a wide range of measures (hormones, vitamins, fatty acids, and other biological markers) in addition to DNA. This will allow them to investigate the biological mechanisms underlying the development of cancer and other diseases.
- Faecal samples allow researchers to study gut microbiome – the community of microorganisms (e.g. bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites), and their metabolic products, that inhabit the human body - and its potential role in the development of cancer and other disease outcomes.
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