Posted on January 21, 2021

In this episode, Breast Cancer Action’s Environmental Health Consultant Heather Sarantis interviews Dr. Barbara Cohn, the lead research principal investigator of the study “Linking Neighborhood and Individual Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to Breast Cancer.” This study is a unique research project made possible by the partnership of Breast Cancer Action and Child Health and Development Studies, and it features a massive, multi-generational data set that started in 1959 with 15,000 women, and has spanned three generations. The breadth of this data allows this ACEs study to pose questions that most researchers can’t begin to touch, including: Can where you live affect your breast cancer risk? If so, how? Does living in a racially segregated neighborhood contribute to an increased risk of breast cancer? What about more aggressive forms of breast cancer? And are these experiences a form of childhood trauma? Although the research team is in the early stages of analyzing the data, we’ve already seen some incredibly thought-provoking results. To learn more about the study and ACEs, tune in to this interview with Dr. Barbara Cohn.