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| Geographic Information System (GIS)
Exposure Assessment
Silent Spring Institute's geographic information system (GIS), a mapping database, integrates health outcomes with historical environmental data. In the Cape Cod Breast Cancer and Environment Study, Silent Spring Institute unites GIS, health, and environmental data to assess the exposures of 2,100 individual women to multiple environmental pollutants throughout the past 40 years. One of the important and innovative methods to assess the environmental exposures of participants in the Cape Study involved developing and implementing two new GIS-tools as well as employing "off the shelf" GIS methods. The primary exposures of interest for the Cape Study relate to three overlapping sets of chemicals: endocrine disruptors, mammary carcinogens, and pesticides. The study team used GIS methods to assess exposures to these compounds from wide-area pesticide use, for example on agricultural land and forests; drinking water infiltrated by wastewater or affected by residential, commercial, or industrial land use; and air pollution. More Information |
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