Posted on February 2, 2015

Cancer rates are higher among firefighters than the general population. And women firefighters in San Francisco are specifically concerned about the number of younger women in their ranks facing a breast cancer diagnosis. Simply telling women to “avoid toxic chemicals” isn’t helpful advice when you’re exposed every day as part of your job. Understanding how occupational exposures impact women’s health can point us toward systemic solutions that protect women’s health as a way to address the breast cancer epidemic.

This webinar discussed the groundbreaking Women’s Firefighters Biomonitoring Collaborative Study, which explores how chemical exposures on the job impact female firefighters’s health, including breast cancer risk. Our three dynamic webinar presenters were:

  • Heather Buren, Lieutenant and Paramedic in the San Francisco Fire Department and United Fire Service Women (UFSW) President;
  • Connie Engel, Science & Education Manager at the Breast Cancer Fund and;
  • Rachel Morello-Frosh, Professor, UC Berkeley School of Public Health and Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, and Principal Investigator on the Women’s Firefighters Biomonitoring Collaborative Study.

Women Firefighters and Breast Cancer Risk Webinar Slides 2015