The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #66206

Regina el Arculli, MA¹, Jamie F. Chriqui, PhD, MHS², Lisa Lineberger², and David Z. Cohen, MPP². (1) Office of Policy Analysis and Response, National Cancer Institute, Building 31, Room 10A48, 31 Center Drive, MSC 2580, Bethesda, MD 20892-2580, (301) 496-5217, elarculli@nih.gov, (2) Center for Health Policy and Legislative Analysis, The MayaTech Corporation, 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 900, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3921

Resolutions are one mechanism employed by state legislatures to express their opinion or sentiment on a given issue. While resolutions do not require that a law be implemented, they do indicate that the legislative body feels that an issue is of enough importance to be recognized. For some issues, a key legislator may serve as a “policy entrepreneur” and seek to promote an issue on the governmental agenda within the state. Regardless of whether a key legislator has proposed a resolution, it still requires approval by the legislative body to be adopted.

In this presentation, we illustrate the trends in cancer control resolutions over the past two decades, by state and topic. The data reveal that while state legislatures have been adopting cancer control resolutions since the early 1980s, over 66% of the resolutions have been adopted since 1997. Over 30% of the resolutions have addressed breast cancer; almost double the amount of attention paid to the second most widely addressed topic, prostate cancer (16%). Certain states (e.g., California, Hawaii, Pennsylvania) have been at the forefront of activity related to cancer control resolutions and have repeatedly introduced the same measure over time (e.g., proclaiming October as breast cancer awareness month in the state), while other states have been more selective in their attention to the issue.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to describe the trends in state legislature’s attention to cancer control over time and by topic.

Keywords: Cancer, Legislative

Related Web page: www.scld-nci.net

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: The data presented in this paper are from the National Cancer Institute’s State Cancer Legislative Database Program (no conflict of interest).
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.