Nearly one in ten U.S. adults have been diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, a new high in Gallup's surveys dating back nearly two decades.
The big picture: Cancer death rates have declined in recent decades, along with incidences of certain types of cancer like lung cancer. But other cancers, notably those associated with obesity, have seen an uptick.
Driving the news: Gallup's data, presented in two-year averages, has shown climbing lifetime cancer diagnosis rates for several years, reaching a new peak in the numbers released Monday.
- The share of adults who said they had been diagnosed with cancer hovered at or just above 7% from 2008-2009 period through 2014-2015, before it began to climb.
Between the lines: The seemingly bad news is threaded by a silver lining: One reason for the climb in lifetime cancer rates, Gallup notes, is because people are living longer after their diagnoses.
- The American Cancer Society explains that even as more people survive cancer, racial and insurance-driven disparities can limit access to treatment and affect survival rates.
By the numbers: Older Americans have much higher rates of lifetime diagnoses than younger adults. And per Gallup, the share of those aged 65 and older who have been diagnosed with cancer has risen 3.4 percentage points from 2008-2009 period to 2024-2025.
- The most recent Gallup analysis showed that 21.5% of those 65 and older had been told by a doctor or nurse that they had cancer, compared to nearly 9% of those in the next oldest age bracket, 45 to 64.
State of play: The country's older population is growing, and its younger cohort is shrinking, part of a longstanding trend of an aging America.
- Per the NIH's National Cancer Institute, advancing age is the most important risk factor for cancer, with incidence rates climbing as patients gray.
Yes, but: There has also been a rise in certain cancers, like colorectal cancer, among younger patients.
Zoom in: Men surpassed women in lifetime cancer diagnoses (9.8% versus 9.6%), with the share of men who have been told they have cancer jumping 3.6 points since Gallup's 2008-2009 data.
- Gallup points to the disproportionate benefit men enjoyed in mortality declines for cancers like lung and prostate, due to dropping smoking rates and widespread testing, respectively.
The bottom line: The findings come as health research has faced a flurry of cuts and disruptions this year, which public health experts say could derail scientific progress.
- Harold Wimmer, the president and CEO of the American Lung Association, applauded the advancements in research that have prevented lung cancer and boosted its survival rates. But he lamented cuts to the nation's public health system.
- The "CDC is critical in helping to prevent lung cancer by funding programs to prevent tobacco use and help people quit, and the research done at NIH has led to 73 new treatments for lung cancer in the last decade alone," he said. "The cuts to programs and research are devastating."
Methodology: All surveys were conducted with randomly selected adults aged 18 and older living in all 50 states and D.C. The 2025 estimates are based on surveys conducted Feb. 18-26, May 27-June 4 and Aug. 26-Sept. 3 with 16,946 respondents as part of the Gallup Panel. The margin of sampling error is about ±0.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
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