Study links air pollution to breast cancer risk, even below EPA standards

Elevated breast cancer risk among 400,000+ women studied, with disproportionate impact on lower-income and Midwest communities; one in eight American women expected to develop breast cancer in lifetime.

For more than four hundred thousand American women tracked across nearly two decades, the air itself has emerged as a quiet accomplice in one of the country's most common cancers. A landmark study published in the American Journal of Public Health has found that exposure to nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter — pollutants woven into the fabric of modern industrial life — is meaningfully associated with elevated breast cancer risk, even at levels the EPA currently deems acceptable. The burden falls hardest on those least equipped to bear it: women in lower-income neighborhoods and the

Study links air pollution to breast cancer risk, even below EPA standards

Related Coverage

Get The Register in your inbox