April is National Minority Health Month, also celebrated as National Minority Cancer Awareness Month, and is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Cancer is a disease that can affect anyone, but it doesn’t affect everyone equally. As an awareness month, the goal is to strengthen understanding of the disproportionate burden of premature death and preventable illness in minority populations and how we can reduce this burden through prevention, early detection, and control of disease complications – a goal that is closely aligned with our own health equity work here at ACS.
Examples of ACS current collaboration partnerships include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Links, Inc. Foundation, as well as a $16 million investment in Cancer Health Equity Research Centers at Minority Serving Institutions. In addition, ACS CAN is working at the local, state, and national levels to advocate for public health policies to improve health outcomes.
To learn more, please visit the following live links:
Please view our ACS Northeast Region 2021 Impact video at https://youtu.be/myuy_hwLMIo. Thanks to your support, the American Cancer Society was able to make a big impact on our work to support patients through discovery, advocacy, and support in 2021.
The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN)] Advocacy Accomplishments site highlights major achievements in 2021. Thanks to volunteer efforts rallying together to demand change from their elected officials, ACS CAN successfully worked at every level of government to pass public policies proven to help those impacted by cancer. You can review these achievements at www.fightcancer.org/accomplishments. If you are not already an ACS CAN member, or your membership has lapsed, please become a member here.
