Geneva: No country has succeeded in halting the rise in obesity, with global overweight rates increasing by 31% to 43% since 2010, making excess body weight one of the fastest-growing preventable drivers of cancer worldwide, says World Health Organization’s Global Status Report on Cancer 2026.
Obesity and physical inactivity are the only areas identified as showing a worsening global trend in cancer prevention. Most countries have been slow to introduce effective, system-wide measures to tackle excess body weight, with obesity policies more common in high-income countries but largely absent in low- and middle-income nations.
Fewer than half of countries have a current, funded national physical activity policy, while 31% of adults do not meet recommended activity levels and 80% of adolescents remain insufficiently active.
Palliative and supportive care remains one of the weakest areas of cancer control. Although 69% of governments dedicate funding for palliative care, an estimated 73 million people require these services every year, yet only 14% receive them.
Tobacco control remains one of the few areas showing measurable progress. Global tobacco use has declined by 27% since 2010, and 155 countries now implement at least one WHO best-practice MPOWER measure, compared with 44 countries in 2007. Despite this progress, incomplete implementation continues to hamper further reductions in tobacco use.
Progress in alcohol control has been far slower. Global per capita alcohol consumption fell from 5.7 litres in 2010 to 5.0 litres in 2022, but implementation of effective alcohol control policies remains uneven. Only 16 of the 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have formal alcohol control policies.
Progress in promoting healthy diets has also been limited. While more countries have introduced taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages, only about 40 to 60 countries have implemented measures restricting the marketing of unhealthy foods to children, while available evidence suggests fruit and vegetable intake remains insufficient to reduce cancer risk.
Infection-related cancers have shown encouraging progress, declining from 16% of all cancers in 2008 to 10% in 2022 because of wider vaccination programmes. However, despite 85% of countries introducing HPV vaccination, global coverage among girls has reached only 31%.
Early diagnosis and screening remain major implementation gaps. Although 90% of national cancer control programmes include early detection for breast and cervical cancer, only 28% of low- and middle-income countries diagnose most breast cancers at stages I and II, compared with 91% of high-income countries. Cervical cancer screening coverage stands at 26% in low- and middle-income countries compared with 74% in high-income countries.
Nearly 47% of the world’s population has little or no access to basic cancer diagnostic services, delaying diagnosis and treatment. Twenty-three low- and middle-income countries still lack radiotherapy facilities, while the availability of priority cancer medicines ranges from 9% to 54% in low- and lower-middle-income countries, compared with 68% to 94% in high-income countries.
The report also identifies persistent workforce shortages, with available evidence showing cancer workforce gaps of two to five times between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, alongside rising burnout and attrition among cancer care professionals.
Despite an increase in national cancer control plans from 50% of countries in 2010 to 82%, only 28% of countries include comprehensive cancer control in their health benefit packages, while 50% to 60% of households affected by cancer continue to face catastrophic healthcare expenditure.