Reducing Environmental and Occupational Cancer Risks Toolkit

INTRODUCTION

Cancer coalition partners – and stakeholders not participating in the coalition – may have expressed concern about exposures to specific environmental and occupational toxicants occurring within your state. How could these concerns be addressed in your state cancer control plan? Answering this question requires understanding current environmental issues and data in your state. 

This Module provides data and information resources, including the use of environmental health tracking data to help you and your state cancer coalition better understand the nature of potential environmental and occupational cancer risks in your state. But before digging into this surveillance data, it is important to take a systems perspective to understand the dynamics influencing environmental cancer risks, which may inform additional data needs to best target effective intervention opportunities.

Module 3 offers scientific evidence sources to help decide if concerns identified through surveillance data and stakeholder input from Module 2 require action, based on how well the evidence links these exposures to a higher risk of cancer.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • It is important to identify priority targets for environmental cancer risk reduction efforts by taking a systems perspective on needs and opportunities. 
  • A range of online tools can help inform and prioritize environmental cancer risk reduction strategies.
  • Engaging experts (technical experts as well as those with knowledge of or lived experience in impacted communities) is a necessary part of identifying priority targets for reducing cancer risk; the science and data alone are insufficient for prioritization.

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