Another Reason to Bring Cancer into the Realm of Global Public Health: The Insularity of Cancer Patients and How Global Public Health Might Get Them Better Connected

As a cancer survivor and a Boston College faculty member, James Keenan, SJ, stresses how urgent it is to consider cancer a global health emergency and how this approach implies a necessary and beneficial change of perspective. In fact, cancer is usually experienced as a personal ordeal, centered on who is affected. As he indicates, shared accompaniment and advocacy–as in the case of women’s grassroots organizations of breast cancer survivors–further exemplify how new forms of collective support, social action, and lived solidarity contribute to change the patterns of cancers’ stories by giving voice and agency to the patients and survivors who are voiceless and disempowered.