THE VALUED VOICE

Each day in the United States, 43 children are diagnosed with cancer (St. Jude, 2020). Worldwide, there are more than 300,000 children under the age of 18 who are diagnosed with some form of cancer. September is dedicated as Childhood Cancer Awareness to bring attention to the children affected by this serious disease, show the important of life-saving research, and join people together to help make a difference in the children’s lives.
 
Wisconsin Hospital Association Information Center (WHAIC) used claim data from Wisconsin hospitals to see how many children are affected by cancer. WHAIC analyzed  data for children under 18 years of age from the years 2017 through 2019. The number of childhood cancer visits decreased from 2017 to 2019. WHAIC looked at eight different types of cancer; the image below depicts the top 5 from WHAIC data. Lymphoma and Wilma tumor (Kidney Cancer) were the two types most frequently diagnosed in Wisconsin children. They are also the two cancer types most frequently diagnosed nationwide.
 
Male children were diagnosed with cancer more often than female children-about 2,100 more male diagnoses than female diagnoses. Children of Hispanic origin accounted for 3 percent of all cancer diagnose. White children accounted for 92 percent of all cases.
 
There are a few different ways in which people can help raise awareness and funding for children with cancer:
 

• Like, Share, and Follow pages on social media that spread awareness of childhood cancer
• Learn the facts and sign of childhood cancer through many different resources
• Join in on a walk or hike to celebrate survivors and those who lost the fight to childhood cancer
• Donate to childhood cancer research and hospitals
• Purchase merchandise in support of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
• Change profile picture for Facebook and Twitter to gold ribbon to raise awareness