UAB: Comprehensive Cancer Center

The Deep South Network for Cancer Control partnered with the American Cancer Society to utilize its Direct Action Organizing strategies as a means for community members to identify health issues they can systematically and strategically impact.  

Each county was provided an overview of this program in order to understand its implications.

As a result…

--DSN has partnered with the ACS, the local Susan G. Komen for the Cure chapter, and the ABCCEDP (Alabama Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection program) to write more than 200 letters to local state representatives to successfully request that $400,000 be restored to the budget for the Early Detection program.

--More than 20 volunteers traveled to the Alabama State Capitol in support of a state-wide comprehensive no smoking ordinance. Through the volunteers’ efforts, the bill was successful in the senate but did not make it for a vote in the House of Representatives.

--Lastly, DSN received funding ($100,000) from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through the ACS for a year long project to implement a no-smoking ordinance in Bessemer and Tuscaloosa. In November 2007, the Bessemer City Council passed the ordinance making Bessemer smoke-free, while Tuscaloosa’s volunteers were successful in strengthening its otherwise weaker ordinance.