Advocacy Introduction
The Advocacy Continuum: Self-advocacy & Policy Advocacy
As survivors who have been there and experienced cancer personally, NCCS knows that quality cancer care doesn’t just happen–it takes advocacy. Advocacy, as NCCS defines it, takes place on a continuum. On one end of the continuum is self-advocacy — which occurs when individual patients or their caregivers speak up personally for their individual care. NCCS has developed a range of tools and programs which support patients and their caregivers in becoming effective self-advocates and health care consumers. Explore NCCS’s self-advocacy tools.
At the other end of the continuum is advocacy in the public interest, which aims to change the system for cancer care in the U.S. As a highly respected voice of survivors and caregivers in Washington, D.C., NCCS understands that public policy decisions at the federal level directly affect people with cancer and their families and the care they receive in communities nationwide.
NCCS works to change cancer policy through the advocacy work of NCCS staff and through the actions of NCCS’s grassroots network, Cancer Advocacy Now!.
Learn about NCCS’s 2008 policy initiatives and how we're working to assure quality cancer care for all Americans. You can also read background on NCCS’s past policy advocacy.
