Breast cancer risk and drinking water contaminated by wastewater: a case control study
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| Audience/Grade: | College Sophomore-Professional Development |
| Discipline(s): |
Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering Biological Systems and Agricultural Engineering Chemical, Biochemical, Biomolecular Engineering Life Sciences |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Teaching - Case Study |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Ann Aschengrau Christopher Swartz Julia Brody Theresa Kennedy Wendy McKelvey |
| Description: | Open access case report. "Background Drinking water contaminated by wastewater is a potential source of exposure to mammary carcinogens and endocrine disrupting compounds from commercial products and excreted natural and pharmaceutical hormones. These contaminants are hypothesized to increase breast cancer risk. Cape Cod, Massachusetts, has a history of wastewater contamination in many, but not all, of its public water supplies; and the region has a history of higher breast cancer incidence that is unexplained by the population's age, in-migration, mammography use, or established breast cancer risk factors. We conducted a case-control study to investigate whether exposure to drinking water contaminated by wastewater increases the risk of breast cancer. Methods Participants were 824 Cape Cod women diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988–1995 and 745 controls who lived in homes served by public drinking water supplies and never lived in a home served by a Cape Cod private well. We assessed each woman's exposure yearly since 1972 at each of her Cape Cod addresses, using nitrate nitrogen (nitrate-N) levels measured in public wells and pumping volumes for the wells. Nitrate-N is an established wastewater indicator in the region. As an alternative drinking water quality indicator, we calculated the fraction of recharge zones in residential, commercial, and pesticide land use areas." |
| Rating: | No Rating |
| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | environmental health breast cancer wastewater contaimination |
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| Use of Resource: |
Conclusions "Results did not provide evidence of an association between breast cancer and drinking water contaminated by wastewater. The computer mapping methods used in this study to link routine measurements required by the Safe Drinking Water Act with interview data can enhance individual-level epidemiologic studies of multiple health outcomes, including diseases with substantial latency." |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | October 2006 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.ehjournal.net/content/5/1/28 |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
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