Nearly one in 10 Americans now say they have been diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives—an increase of almost 40 percent in 16 years.
The latest data from the 2024-25 Gallup poll revealed that 9.7 percent of adults in the United States said they had received a cancer diagnosis at least once in their lifetime.
This represents a 9 percent increase from the previous survey period of 2022-23, when 8.9 percent of respondents said they had received a cancer diagnosis.
In 2008-09, 7 percent of respondents said they had been diagnosed with cancer.
Researchers cautioned that the United States now has more cancer survivors than ever partly because of shifting demographics, particularly the increase in longevity, with older adults more likely to be diagnosed with cancer, but also because survival rates for many forms of the disease have significantly improved….