The American Cancer Society is on a mission to free the world from cancer. For more than 100 years, we have helped lead an evolution in the way the world prevents, detects, treats, and thinks about cancer. As the nation’s preeminent cancer-fighting organization, we fund and conduct research, share expert information, support people with cancer, spread the word about prevention, and through our advocacy affiliate, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), advocate for public policy change. We are committed to ensuring that ALL people have a fair and just opportunity to prevent, find, treat, and survive cancer – regardless of income, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, or where they live. Thanks in large part to our decades of work, a cancer diagnosis does not come without hope, and the cancer journey is not one that is traveled alone.
Our mission delivery efforts are focused on the critical areas of Discovery, Advocacy, Patient Support, and Community Development. Despite the incredibly challenging start of the decade, we are still seeing progress being made in the fight against cancer. As the nation’s preeminent cancer-fighting organization, the American Cancer Society (ACS) is committed to moving us even closer to a world without cancer by continuing to build on this progress. In 2019, we set a nationwide goal to reduce the cancer death rate (from that reported in 2015) by an additional 40% by 2035, which could lead to approximately 1.3 million fewer cancer deaths between 2020 and 2035.
We are working to achieve this goal through targeted efforts that include investments in community engagement, research, improving equitable access to care, urging people to resume cancer screening, and working to reduce long-standing disparities in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment outcomes. Globally, we convene government and civil society stakeholders, share our expertise, invest resources, and design programs and initiatives to reduce the stark disparities in cancer outcomes in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Colombia.
