The impact of the built environment on the risk of breast cancer
Related link: California Teachers Study (CTS)
Prevention of breast cancer, the most common cancer of women in the United States, is difficult because most identified factors contributing to its occurrence cannot easily be modified. Two factors, obesity and physical inactivity, are characteristics that have both been shown to be associated with a higher risk of breast cancer and to have the potential to be changed. However, public health efforts to reduce the rapidly increasing rates of obesity and increase physical activity have yielded limited success. Therefore, new directions and strategies are needed to combat the increasing occurrence of breast cancer. Studies are now providing convincing evidence that physical activity and obesity are associated with the built environment, man-made attributes of a person's surroundings, such as the existence and condition of sidewalks, availability of resources (health care, food, playgrounds, public transportation) and the number of walkable destinations. However, no prior studies have considered the influence of the built environment on cancer incidence. Combining survey data collected from the California Teachers Study, a prospective cohort of over 120,000 women, with clinical breast cancer information from the California Cancer Registry, and built environment characteristics from geographic information systems (GIS), this will be the first study to test the hypothesis that the built environment affects the risk of breast cancer. This study has the potential to identify new avenues of breast cancer prevention, specifically how community environments may be changed to reduce the occurrence of breast cancer.
NCCC Principal Investigator: Theresa Keegan, Ph.D.
Co-investigators: Scarlett Gomez, Ph.D., Peggy Reynolds, Ph.D.
Funding Source: National Cancer Institute, 2007-2009
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