Clarissa Schilstra, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UNSW, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“I am honoured to have contributed to the World Health Organization’s Global Status Report on Cancer 2026: The Future We Choose Together, released this week. Over the past several years, I have had the privilege of working alongside an extraordinary international team to lead WHO’s first global survey exploring the lived experiences of people affected by cancer.
Together, we gathered insights from people living with and beyond cancer, family members, caregivers, and bereaved relatives across countries with diverse resources and healthcare systems. Our research highlights an important truth: cancer is not only a medical condition—it also has profound psychosocial, financial, and family impacts that require meaningful policy and health-system responses.
This achievement reflects the incredible efforts of a truly global collaboration, including the dissemination committee members, researchers, clinicians, advocates, community organisations, and, most importantly, the thousands of people who shared their experiences to help shape a better future for cancer care worldwide.
Thank you to everyone who made this work possible. It has been a genuine labour of love, and I am excited to see how these findings can help advance more equitable, person-centred cancer care around the world!”
Claire Wakefield, Director of Research at the Division of Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care at Stanford University, shared this post, adding:
“Wow oh wow- what a week!
I never imagined I’d see lived experience data given equal prominence to global cancer statistics on the very first page of WHO’s flagship global cancer report!! At the heart of those findings are the experiences of thousands of people affected by cancer from more than 120 countries, in 25 languages, each of whom contributed to our Global Lived Experience of Cancer study.
None of this would have been possible without the extraordinary Clarissa Schilstra, Julie Cayrol, Roberta Ortiz, Lori Wiener, Ruth Hoffman, Jordana McLoone, Moses Echodu, Justin Baker and the most incredible international team!!! Congrats to all!”
You can also read: WHO Global Status Report on Cancer 2026: The Future We Choose Together
