Interest in breast cancer and household pollutants draws two from Brown into research collaboration with activist organizations

Phil Brown and Rachel Morello-Frosch will work to pinpoint the chemicals in homes in regions with a higher-than-average incidence of breast cancer, determine where the chemicals come from, and how they can be reduced.

by Kristen Cole

University researchers Phil Brown and Rachel Morello-Frosch are exploring potential links between household environments and breast cancer in women.

Brown, professor of sociology, and Morello-Frosch, assistant professor of environmental studies, are part of a four-year research project funded by nearly $1 million from the National Institutes of Health. They will collaborate with researchers on both coasts to pinpoint the chemicals in homes in regions with a higher-than-average incidence of breast cancer, determine where the chemicals come from, and how they can be reduced.

Using a commercial vacuum cleaner modified to collect dust from household surfaces and a specialized pump to collect air from the homes, researchers intend to test about 60 homes in California and Massachusetts for 89 different pollutants.

The team is sleuthing for endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), found in sources ranging from consumer products to industrial processes and known to mimic estrogen, a risk factor for breast cancer.

The project will test homes on Cape Cod, largely populated by middle-class whites, and Richmond, Calif., a community composed largely of African Americans and Latinos, and located near refineries and the freeway.

The project links Brown University with an activist organization on the East Coast and another on the West Coast.

The East Coast partner is Silent Spring Institute, a collaboration of scientists, physicians, health advocates and community activists. The institute is a national leader in research that specifically examines environmental links to breast cancer. Its executive director, Julia Brody, will lead the project. The West Coast partner is Communities for a Better Environment, a group providing community environmental monitoring in neighborhoods in California.

The stereotype of breast cancer as a disease of white middle- and upper-class women is waning, said Morello-Frosch. Although there is a greater incidence of breast cancer among white women, there is a greater mortality rate among women of color, she said.

The researchers will form community advisory boards in both regions of the country to create a dialogue about the project's goals and findings with community members, and to encourage homeowners to give researchers feedback on the project.

Twice during the project, researchers will conduct general public educational presentations to build environmental justice-breast cancer alliances that they hope will empower people to work for change.

Researchers will also try to determine ways to reduce the pollutants in each home studied, and will test an exposure reduction intervention in some homes.

Morello-Frosch said that scientists do not know much about pollutants indoors, which is where humans spend 80 percent of their time. Although the evidence linking environmental factors to breast cancer is suggestive, it is still an area of debate in the scientific community. Linking the presence of environmental pollution to adverse health is an ongoing challenge in the environmental health field, particularly when populations are exposed to a chemical mix, she said.

Morello-Frosch, who was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 years ago, has no idea what caused her cancer at the age of 28. She has no family history of the disease, nor did she grow up in a community in which she was exposed to obvious environmental hazards.

In her personal life, Morello-Frosch has been active in the advocacy group Breast Cancer Action, but this is the first time her academic research into how pollutants affect health includes breast cancer.

"This work serendipitously combines my advocacy work with my scientific work," she said. "Having gone through breast cancer, I think, gives me insight into the research and grounds it in reality."