system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Fallout] Were cancer rates through the roof in pre-war America?

Fallout takes place in an alternate history where nuclear power was adopted as the predominant technology and power source, for about 150 years. Robots, transportation, computing, energy. All nuclear powered.  Consequently, a huge amount of technology must be emitting radioactive particles, no matter how safe it was engineered to be.  

Soldiers wearing power armor were walking around with a small fusion battery on their back.  

Hell, wearing a pip-boy meant walking around with a nuclear powered computer on your arm all the time.  

Were cancer rates for the average American sky high during this period?
gpt
Actually fossil fuels were the predominant energy source in the fallout universe, it was only due to its scarcity by the time of the Resource Wars that nuclear power became more common. 

That being said, radiation shielding was very advanced by the time of the Great War. Power armor offers a radiation resistance bonus, so it can be assumed that pip-boys can shield their radioactive power source (if they are indeed nuclear powered). 

Not to mention that drugs like Rad-X and Radaway made minor radiation absorption a rather trivial and easily cured affliction. I’m sure cancer rates were through the roof, but that’s more likely due to carcinogens in tobacco smoke and processed food than radiation, for the average American at least.