Lance Armstrong Foundation Gets Gold Standard From CEOs
by Adam Clark (LIVESTRONG Staff)
Today the Lance Armstrong Foundation received the CEO Cancer Gold Standard accreditation from the CEO Roundtable on Cancer for its commitment to implement workforce policies that will ensure healthy lifestyles and access to the best care for all its employees. The CEO Roundtable on Cancer is comprised of corporate executives from major American companies. The Roundtable was formed after a request from President George H.W. Bush to bring together a group of executives to ensure that leaders from private industry play a prominent role in the national effort to eradicate cancer. These executives established the Gold Standard recommendations as means by which to fight cancer by meeting three goals:
- Risk Reduction through Lifestyle Change: reducing the risk of cancer,
- Early Detection: detecting cancer at the earliest possible stage, when treatment has the best chance of improving outcomes, and
- Quality Care: ensuring access to the best available cancer treatment.
The CEO Roundtable on Cancer is also an active partner in the recently released National Call to Action on Cancer Prevention and Survivorship by U.S. Surgeons General Carmona, Satcher, Elders, and Novello. The Gold Standard served as a model strategy for the role businesses could play in taking up the charge of the National Call to Action by implementing evidence-based health strategies at the workplace. Companies that receive accreditation develop and enact workplace policies that commit to their employees a tobacco-free work environment, access to tobacco cessation tools, a workplace that provides healthy foods and activities, education of and access to screening and early detection approaches, and access to cancer clinical trials. Achieving all of these pillars will ensure that the company’s focus is on its employees health and welfare.
While it is an honor for the LAF to receive this accreditation, it is also a privilege that Lance, Doug, and the LAF leadership have committed to making sure that LAF leads not only by words, but also by example, making sure that the Foundation truly is a Gold Standard workplace that focuses on its employees health. But it is also important to spread this initiative to all companies and workplaces. The Gold Standard needs become the Standard. Any company can receive this accreditation by committing to and achieving five pillars set up by the Roundtable. For more information on CEO Cancer Gold Standard accreditation click here.
