Environmental Causes of Breast Cancer Across Generations

Institution: Public Health Institute
Investigator(s): Barbara  Cohn , Ph.D., MPH, MCP -
Award Cycle: 2009 (Cycle 15) Grant #: 15ZB-0186 Award: $5,000,000
Award Type: SRI Program Directed Awards
Research Priorities
Prevention & Risk Reduction>The intersection of environment and disparities



Initial Award Abstract (2009)

This study will test the idea that prenatal exposure to environmental chemicals increases the risk of breast cancer. Many of these compounds are known to affect fertility, birth outcomes and immune function and are thus suspected causes of or contributors to breast cancer. However, no human study has been able to measure exposure in the womb, a time of vulnerability for the developing fetus.

This project will focus on polycholorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the chemical that it breaks down into in the body, which is known to increase estrogen action and to cross over to the fetus more readily than the original PCB compounds. Investigators will also further examine the insecticide DDT, which they previously linked to increased breast cancer risk.

This project will follow-up on the Child Health and Development Studies cohort, a group of women who gave birth in the Bay Area between 1959 and 1967. Daughters of these women will be surveyed to identify their risk factors and environmental exposures. Blood samples from when their mothers were pregnant will be tested for the suspect chemicals to look for differences between those women with a breast cancer diagnosis and those without in their 40s, and between women of different race/ethnicity, education and geographic areas.

CHDS granddaughters, who are now in young childhood and adolescence, when contemporary exposures to environmental chemicals can be captured at a vulnerable period of breast development, will also be invited to participate with their mothers.

This project will also establish procedures for ongoing participant involvement in this project as the daughters and the granddaughters move through the ages of breast cancer risk. An Advisory Committee consisting of cohort members will help design study procedures, materials, review research objectives and disseminate findings.

This project will result in a wholly unique three-generation study of the environmental causes of breast cancer and will describe disparities in these exposures based on multiple available classifications of social educational and geographic characteristics in addition to race/ethnicity. This project is the first “womb to breast cancer study”. Because prior research strongly implicates early life exposures as important, we expect to make a significant contribution to understanding preventable, environmental causes of breast cancer.