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According to a new survey, most U.S. women understood breast cancer risk factors, but only a minority were taking action to help lower their risk.

"Knowing your risk factors isn't the same as acting on them, and this gap is the real story here," said Alpa Patel, senior vice president of population science at the American Cancer Society (ACS), which sponsored the survey.

"It's not enough to raise awareness—we have to understand whether awareness translates into action, and how we can help women close the distance," she said in an ACS news release.

Breast cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in women (after skin cancer), according to the ACS, and about 1 in 8 women will develop the disease in their lifetime.

In 2026, it's expected that almost 322,000 U.S. women will receive a diagnosis of invasive breast cancer, and more than 42,000 lives will be lost to the disease.

However, the ACS estimates that 30% of cases are preventable through the adoption of healthy behaviors that could reduce a woman's risk.

The new survey was published Oct. 1 and involved 33,000 American women. The women were already enrolled in a major ACS cancer prevention study, so it's thought their awareness of breast cancer may be higher than that of the general population.

The survey found that almost all women (99%) already knew that family history of the disease can affect their odds of breast cancer.

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