Cross-Cutting Priorities

PSE approaches can make healthy living easier and provide sustainable cancer prevention and control improvements where people live, work, play, and learn.

We can make communities healthier by supporting changes in—

• • Policies to protect communities from harmful agents or elements (such as indoor tanning policies to limit exposure to ultraviolet rays or smoke-free policies to limit exposure to secondhand smoke).
  • Systems to increase the use of client reminders to get people screened for cancer, or to increase access to healthy food choices in schools and workplaces.

• Environments to encourage communities to be active (such as pedestrian-and bike-friendly streets).

Health equity is achieved when every person has the opportunity to live their healthiest life, including people in communities with a higher burden of cancer. Programs address health equity by—

• Training and maintaining a culturally competent workforce, including patient navigators, community health workers, and other public health practitioners, to tailor interventions for underrepresented and underserved groups.
• Promoting equitable access to resources, like quality and affordable screening, treatment, and care options.
• Improving data measurement in research and surveillance, and using that data to guide community-driven plans.

Program evaluation drives public health decision making and identifies what works and where resources need to be invested. Evaluation improves programs by—

• Strengthening activities with pilot programs and participant feedback.
• Preserving resources through evaluation partnerships and information sharing.
• Ensuring outcomes will be met by monitoring the success of program activities during implementation.

• Arkansas—Smoke-free State FairTobacco policies at the state fair reduce families’ exposure to secondhand smoke.
• Indiana—Complete Streets Initiative pdf icon[PDF-186KB]Neighborhood streets are accessible and attractive to pedestrians and cyclists to increase physical activity.
• New York—Access to Cancer ScreeningWorksite policy gives 8 extra leave hours to county workers to get cancer screenings.
• Great Plains Reservation—Tribal Tobacco UseCultural competency trainings teach community health workers how to talk about commercial tobacco use with tribe members.
• Wisconsin—LGBT Passport to HealthEducational booklet provides population-specific health and cancer screening information.
• Oregon—Tobacco Prevention for MedicaidState reduces Medicaid insurance barriers to increase recipients’ access to primary prevention and tobacco cessation resources.
• North Dakota—Treadmill DesksTreadmill desks increase employee physical activity to reduce cancer risk.
• Washington, DC—Inside Knowledge PilotSelfMadeHealth Network pilots gynecologic cancer educational sessions for college-aged African American women.
• Arkansas—Head Start FamiliesStaff learn how to talk to rural, low socioeconomic status parents about smoking cessation and risks.

• Primary prevention
• Early Detection and Treatment
• Survivorship
• Policy, Systems, and Environmental (PSE) Approaches
• Health Equity
• Evaluation