Back to The Institute for Sustainable Development		Breast Cancer Mapping and Environmental Health: Breast cancer now accounts for almost one out of every three cancer diagnoses among women. While many cancer rates have fallen in recent years, breast cancer rates continue to climb. It is the most common form of cancer for women, excluding non-melanoma skin cancers. Breast cancer is also the leading cause of death for women between the ages of 35 and 54. The geographic pattern of breast cancer has attracted a lot of interest among breast cancer survivors, health activists, scientists, and government health officials. There has been a lot of interest in the idea that some cancers may cluster together and this clustering can help explain why the incidence rates for breast cancer continue to rise. Community mapping projects have become an important tool for informing and empowering local citizens. Through maps, community groups can address environmental, health, economic development, social welfare, historic preservation, land use, demographics, natural hazards and a host of other issues. Using GIS overlays, community mapping projects can be an effective tool for looking at the linkages among different sets of issues. For example, we can use GIS to look at the way breast cancer patterns correlate with demographic or environmental factors. Mapping the occurrence of breast cancer provides local communities with a visual representation of breast cancer patterns. Many are concerned that high rates of breast cancer are associated with environmental contamination; GIS can be an important tool in helping to decipher what environmental contaminants are causing breast cancers to rise. The Institute’s co-Director, Dr. Scott Carlin, has collaborated with the Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition (HBCAC) to survey nearly 24,000 women in the Town of Huntington over the last ten years to assess the extent and causes of breast cancer in their area. The maps were presented at a local public forum in January 2001. Breast cancer mapping in Huntington is still in an early phase of development. The mapping process is envisioned as a three-stage process. The first stage is now complete. Cancer cases have been geocoded and mapped using ESRI's ArcView software. The zip+4 geocoded centroids provided by GDT enabled HBCAC to successfully geocode over 99% of the survey. Greenman Pedersen, Inc. printed these maps on a large format printer. The maps are now on display in local libraries. The second stage of the analysis is to examine the data for possible cancer clusters. This analysis will continue in the 2002-2003 academic year. The third phase of the research would correlate breast cancer patterns with known environmental hazards in the region. Dr. Carlin and the HBCAC were invited to present at the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI, Inc.) International Health Geographical Information System (GIS) Conference in November 2001 in Washington DC. Dr. Scott Carlin presented the paper "Community Breast Cancer Mapping – Huntington, Long Island." The presentation discussed the collaborative mapping project, and focused on the importance of community-based mapping projects for public health initiatives. The Institute is further collaborating with the HBCAC to secure funding for the Prevention is the Cure Campaign (PICT) through the U.S. National Institute of Health Sciences.