Prevention. “It should not be reserved for the elite who will multiply expensive checks”

Why do we resist the kind of action that will allow us to stay healthy longer or live better? In France, in 2024, prevention remains the weak link in the health system, and beyond age and possible regional disparities, it is also very often a matter of culture. or is a matter of education.Health insurance warning letters. We put them under our emergency pile. Advice from a general practitioner? We usually follow them when fear has already affected our lives. According to the 2024 barometer of the Femmes de Santé collective, less than three in ten women (27%) feel fully informed about the frequency of prevention, screening and follow-up throughout their lifetime.

The result, according to the French public health survey 2021-2022, all socio-professional backgrounds combined, every 2nd woman does not receive a mammogram or cancer screening. However, claims Dr. Charlotte Burton: “Each year, 40% of new cancer cases can be avoided through prevention.” A resuscitation anesthetist in Bordeaux, he now fights tirelessly through his Dépist&vous digital platform to democratize cancer prevention, allowing as many people as possible to access it, understand it and stick to it.A meeting with transformative energy.

Madame Figaro .- For two years we have seen and heard how you raise your voice in the field of prevention, which is struggling to unite its audience in France. What did we not understand?
Dr. Charlotte Berthau: Let’s start with the basics.The principle of prevention is to say to yourself: I am healthy, I stay healthy. Except it’s not about thinking that as long as we don’t have symptoms we don’t need to get tested, we don’t need anything. Perhaps the Covid crisis has created confusion because it has taught you to only get tested if you have symptoms… However, screening the principle is to do it healthy. And ask yourself, what am I doing now to stay that way? Each of us is subject to disclosure (all our environmental influences, pollution, pesticides, endocrine disruptors, editor’s note), to which are added tobacco, alcohol, sedentary lifestyle, junk food, etc. If we explain to people correctly that they have risk factors, that they can play on them and modify them; If we have supporting figures, we clearly identify the impact of these risk factors on the number of new cancer cases, I think we can be effective. Junk food and obesity are the cause of 20,000 new cancer cases in France. alcohol, 30,000 new cases; Tobacco, with 70,000 Furthermore, studies show that the more developed the country, the more the rate of cancer among the under-50s explodes, more than 80% in the last thirty years and will be another 30% by 2030. We absolutely must reach this at-risk population who are not concerned who are not receiving letters from Health Insurance for screening.breast and colorectal cancer. In my practice as a doctor, I notice that when I ask women: “Do you know the date of your last smear, the date of your last mammogram, do you know your family history?”, most do not know, remain in the dark. or in denial.

Junk food and obesity cause 20,000 new cancer cases a year in France

Dr. Charlotte Berthau

Prevention is not a desirable subject, if we may use that word… And curative treatment in France is still regarded as “ more honest than preventive.
Exactly right. The curative is more specific, I’m sick/I’m not sick anymore, and I’d say it’s also more discreet in terms of effects that show up in the long term a good approach, obviously, except that the requested doctors, pharmacists and nurses are paid €30 for a thirty to forty-five minute consultation I think we need to create new professions with advanced practice nurses (known as IPA) and health centers that will generally lead to a more equitable distribution between, on the one hand, healthy people, oriented to prevention centers, and on the other, sick people. which are taken care of through hospital-centered care. Colonoscopy, for example, continues to be scary. However, if you explain that through this act, if you find a polyp, it will be removed, preventing you from getting cancer years later, this whole arsenal of prevention immediately becomes more real and acceptable. If you explain to a young man that the HPV vaccine is useful for preventing throat or penile cancer in boys later, he will understand.

Especially if we use for digital communication…
Among 15-24 year olds, the illiteracy rate is generally 2%. So yes, let’s use digital because we will reach them. It gives them access to information, it allows them to get an education, to personalize it this information so that whoever receives it feels concerned. Moreover, I think that it should be explained to people very early on what health costs. If, for example, we provided them with a systematic invoice, including after compensated care, we would make them more aware of the problem. What is important to me is that each of us is active in our health.

I think it is necessary to explain to people very early what health costs

Dr. Charlotte Berthau

You were a resuscitation anesthesiologist, a physician entrepreneur for four years and the founder of the startup Dépist&vous.What was your personal focus?
After thirteen years of study, I became a resuscitation anesthetist, four years at the Institut Bergonier, a cancer center in Bordeaux. Until this day in 2019, my father was diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma due to his ignorance of the danger of a degenerative mole, he had not spoken before and therefore received severe treatment. . I felt helpless. And I realized my more general frustration when I heard so many people in my consultations telling me: who warns more than the doctor who heals, so I decided to invent something else. At first it was like jumping in the air. When you’re a salaried doctor, like I am, you don’t have any entrepreneurial training, unlike, say, a pharmacist.

How does Screening work?
It’s a digital tool that allows you to make progress in prevention, like a screening log for men and women ages 18 and up, and it offers three cancer prevention solutions. First, a web app where you fill out medical questionnaires based on your personal and family history, then you get sourced recommendations, possible screening recommendations, and even referrals to available health professionals Breast, cervical, colorectal and skin cancer screening courses are supplemented by self-examination courses with manuals for breast and testicles, and individual reminders each month to say

We are not a miracle solution to offset a medical desert here or there. Our goal is to plant a seed in people’s minds. am I at risk or not?- to contact the teleconsultation platforms, and finally, to democratize the topic.Therefore, we organize prevention seminars in conjunction with the under 50 companies . We remove fears and taboos, which are numerous, perform interactive training, share patient testimonials. He doesn’t say anything more than that. Sometimes we go so far as to bring a carer into the workplace to meet people at higher risk of skin cancer and facilitate early detection.

Almost every second user consults their doctor after using the platform, which proves that people are responsible

What is your ambition at the end of the road?
We now have about twenty partnerships with mutuals, insurers and companies, 62% of whom are women within a year. Almost every second user buys after using the platform to his doctor, which proves that people are responsible. As an individual, registration on the platform costs 15 euros. All data is anonymous and confidential. We do not want stigmatize or give instructions. But explain the correlation between a certain behavior and a certain risk factor, establish a regular and non-ethical dialogue, and constantly update our information so that it becomes digestible and educational. I think that people lack willpower, but health education. Society must support this societal change, which truly consists of citizen empowerment. Prevention should not be reserved for the elite, who will multiply expensive checks, sometimes a source of overdiagnosis. My ambition is to help access prevention for all.

* depistetvous.fr: