American Cancer Society, Inc.

The American Cancer Society, Inc. Board of Directors established Outcome Goals for six Mission Priority areas:

Lung Cancer/Tobacco Control
• Increase tobacco excise taxes in all jurisdictions and increase the federal excise tax.
• Increase the percentage of the population covered by comprehensive smoke-free laws,
with the ultimate goal of a comprehensive, non-preemptive federal smoke-free law.
• Achieve Medicare coverage for evidence-based lung cancer screening and serve as the convener of relevant groups to promote adherence to high-quality screening guidelines.

Healthy Eating Active Living Environment
• Promote environmental change that will improve nutrition and physical activity and advocate for related legislative and regulatory policy at all levels of government.

Colorectal Cancer
Increase interventions to reduce colorectal cancer death rates in specific communities that have the highest colorectal cancer death rates.

Breast Cancer
• Increase interventions to reduce breast cancer death rates in specific communities that have the highest breast cancer death rates.

Cancer Treatment & Patient Care
• Provide multi-channel resource navigation options.
• Implement interventions aimed at reducing barriers to care for individuals with lower income and lower education levels.

Access to Care
(This outcome cuts across all areas.)
• Implement key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) related to access to preventive services, insurance market reforms, operation of state and federal exchanges including access to viable provider networks and adequate drug
formularies, enhanced transparency, development of an adequate essential benefits package, expansion of Medicaid, and improved Medicare coverage.
• Improve access to care for cancer patients and their families who are most likely to experience inadequate access to high-quality cancer treatment and support services by focusing on patient navigation solutions and service programs that address barriers.

NOTE: the enterprise conducts a significant amount of work in areas other than the priority areas that are not discussed here.

The organization utilizes a variety of strategies to achieve the Outcome Goals including public policy advocacy, systems policy and practice, information and empowerment, research and resource navigation.

The organization has capabilties to achieve the Outcome Goals including our 501c4 sister organization, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network as well as expertise in cancer control, corporate systems, health systems, community engagement. Additionally, we deliver comprehensive patient information and service programs and operate both extramural and intramural research programs.

Although there are many kinds of cancer, they all start with out-of-control replication, cell death, and loss of normal cell function. Cancer tops the list of Americans' health concerns because it is still a prevalent – and too often deadly – disease.

The Society educates the public, the media, and health professionals about the steps people can take to stay
well, programs and resources the Society offers to help people with cancer get well, the progress toward and
action needed to find cancer's causes and cures, and ways everyone can fight back against the disease. The
Society works to maintain its leadership roles in research, education, advocacy, and patient support programs. Since 1946, the Society has invested more than $4.3 billion in cancer research.

Also, because cancer knows no boundaries, our mission includes establishing key focus areas to help reduce the global burden of cancer. These include global grassroots policy and awareness, tobacco control, cancer screening and vaccination for breast and cervical cancers, access to pain relief, and the support of cancer registration in low- and middle-income countries.

Evidence now shows that early detection can halt common cancers such as those of the cervix, breast, and colon, which represented a quarter of new cancer cases in 2014. We now have strategies that can help prevent many cancers from starting at all. The development of treatments such as Gleevec and Herceptin has shown how specific molecules can target and block cancer-causing abnormalities.

Mortality rates have declined for almost all major cancers for both men and women, and in 2014 we marked an overall 22 percent decline in these rates since the early 1990s.

Thanks to these advances, cancer survivorship has now become part of our public discourse. Nearly 14 million Americans who have a personal history of cancer are alive today – twice the number of survivors as 30 years ago. We expect this number to go from 14 million to 18 million by 2022.

Cancer claims the lives of more than 1,600 people every day in the United States, and worldwide is a growing threat that is projected to nearly double by 2030, causing 21.4 million cases and killing 13.2 million people, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Our organizational mission to eliminate cancer as a major health problem is at increasing risk and challenged by these global trends. Achieving our goal and combating this rising worldwide threat will require us to be more effective than ever before – we will need to quantify the lifesaving impact we have on chronic disease and act as a true leader, bringing others together across sectors to collectively turn the tide.