We know what needs to be done to save more lives from cancer, and many of those solutions are policy solutions. By encouraging prevention, guaranteeing access to affordable health care, curbing tobacco use and focusing on patients' quality of life lawmakers can help fight cancer. These measures have been proven to dramatically reduce the burden of cancer, a disease that still kills 1,500 people in this country every day. Yet, a new edition of the ACS CAN report How Do You Measure Up? shows that the majority of states are not measuring up on legislative solutions to prevent and fight cancer. The report ranks where states stand on these issues that play a critical role in reducing cancer incidence and death. It measures seven specific issues:
A color-coded system is used to identify how well a state is doing. Green represents the benchmark position, showing that a state has adopted well-balanced policies and good practices. Yellow indicates moderate movement toward the benchmark. Red shows where states are falling short. This year, no state received greens in more than five of the seven issues, and only Delaware and Vermont reached a benchmark in five. Seven states Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee did not meet the benchmark on any of the seven issues. In most cases, small upfront investments by a state can save millions of dollars in health care costs in the long run. In fact, we know we could prevent roughly half of all cancer deaths in the United States if everyone in America were to stop smoking, get screened for cancer, eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly. Some of the ways states can help are:
Mariah Forster Olson, an ACS CAN Ambassador Constituent Team Lead (ACT Lead), traveled to Washington, D.C. this week to share her story as a childhood cancer survivor and to advocate on behalf of other patients and survivors during the 2019 Childhood Cancer Action Days.