Issues

The cover is adapted from Figure 1 in the article, “Environmental Quality and Invasive Breast Cancer,” by Gearhart-Serna and colleagues. The figure shows the environmental quality index (EQI) stratified by rural–urban categories by county. To test the hypothesis that the incidence of specific breast cancer stages can vary by demographics in relation to environmental factors, Gearhart-Serna and colleagues utilized EQI datasets to investigate associations between environmental factors and breast cancer compared to carcinoma in situ. Cumulatively, the results suggest that some broad measures of environmental quality are associated with invasive breast cancer, but that associations vary by environmental domain, cancer stage, subtype, and urbanicity. The study demonstrates the strongest positive association for poor land environmental quality and distant metastatic breast cancer. For more information, see the article beginning on page 1920.
The article is included in the CEBP Focus, “Environmental Carcinogenesis: Pathways to Prevention,” published in this issue. The AACR convened a Special Conference entitled, “Environmental Carcinogenesis: Potential Pathway to Prevention,” held June 22 to 24, 2019, in Charlotte, NC, and cochaired by Margaret Kripke, Ernest Hawk, and Timothy Rebbeck. A goal of the meeting was to review and analyze evidence for the role of environmental factors in cancer development and discuss how this information could be applied to prevent cancer. The meeting also provided a forum for discussion of these issues among diverse groups, including cancer biologists, epidemiologists, toxicologists, advocates, community leaders, and communication specialists, who rarely have opportunities to interact. The Focus included in this issue represents but a few of the resulting collaborations. For more information, see the Focus section beginning on page 1869.