This website is an example of educational advocacy.
We have designed our site to provide you with information that we hope helps you better understand what cancer is, what causes cancer, cancer risk and an in-depth section on clinical trials and research.
We also plan to develop and make available various decision aid tools to assist patients and their medical and support teams.
Political Advocacy
Goals: Impact public policy through lobbying. This can be at the State and/or Federal level. You can also serve on advisory committees for your State cancer action plan or other groups that make recommendation at either the State or local level.
Examples:
- Research funding: Amount of dollars and how it is allocated
- Health care policy: Universal health care coverage
- FDA authority: Which drugs are approved and criteria used
- Environmental issues: Focus on cancer causing agents and how to protect consumers
Research Advocacy
Goals: To ensure high quality research that is sensitive to the priorities of cancer patients. This may mean more targeted therapies that offer higher quality of life and/or fewer and easier treatment visits.
This may also mean pushing for research that looks at causes, prevention and metastatic cancer.
Examples:
- Sitting on grant review panels, Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), and Data and Safety Monitoring Boards (DSMBs)
- Working with researchers to develop grant proposals and implement funded projects
- Reviewing clinical trial protocols, patient recruitment and education materials
- Assisting with strategies to increase patient recruitment, compliance and retention for clinical trials
- Participating in Cancer Cooperative Groups and other National Cancer Institute (NCI) Working Groups
Support Advocacy
Goals: To provide support to cancer patients and their families. This can be in the form of emotional, financial, nutritional and/or physical assistance.