Breast cancer advocacy and environmental justice communities are natural allies that are linked through a collaboration of Silent Spring Institute, Communities for a Better Environment, and Brown University that is investigating the role of household pollutants in health. The project is assessing household exposure for endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) and developing communications tools to report results to affected individuals and communities.

EDCs from sources such as consumer products, industrial processes, and air and water pollution are a concern for breast cancer activists because many EDCs mimic estrogen, a known risk factor for breast cancer. EDCs are emerging, too, as an environmental justice concern because of disproportionate breast cancer mortality among African-American women. They may also affect asthma, fetal development, premature puberty, learning disabilities, and other aspects of reproductive and neurological health.

Indoor pollutants originate from both indoor and outdoor sources, and exposure studies can help identify the major sources. Samples of indoor air and dust were collected in two locations—in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which has disproportionately high breast cancer risk, and a site in Richmond, California, which is largely home to people of color living near an oil refinery and other industrial sites. Chemical analysis of the California samples was completed in May 2007 and analysis of the results is underway. Results of the California study will be shared both as aggregate information presented through community meetings, news media, and other channels, and as individual report-back to study participants. For more information about the Cape Cod Study click here.

The project’s specific aims are: to link breast cancer advocacy and environmental justice in two communities that differ in racial/ethnic and economic character, to better understand exposure to EDCs in indoor environments and the relationships between indoor measurements and outdoor sources, to report environmental monitoring data to individuals and communities in a way that supports empowerment, and to develop guidance for report-back by others.

Silent Spring Institute leads the project team, a multidisciplinary academic-community collaborative that includes co-investigators Dr. Phil Brown from Brown University and Dr. Rachel Morello-Frosch from the School of Public Health at the University of California-Berkeley, Dr. Julia Brody and Ruthann Rudel from Silent Spring Institute, and Carla Perez at Communities for a Better Environment in the San Francisco Bay Area. By developing advisory boards in both Massachusetts and the San Francisco Bay Area, the team will engage with and solicit ongoing feedback and input from environmental justice organizations, breast cancer advocacy organizations, community residents, environmental health scientists, and healthcare and public health professionals. The project is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.