A risk factor is anything that raises a person’s chance of getting a disease such as cancer. Different cancers have different risk factors. Some risk factors, like smoking or diet, can be changed. Others, like a person's age or family history, can’t be changed. But risk factors don’t tell us everything. Having a risk factor, or even many risk factors, does not mean that you will get the disease. And many people who get the disease may have few or no known risk factors. This article spotlights some of the risk factors that make a person more likely to develop nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC).