Lessons learnt from a three-year pilot field epidemiology training programme.

Problem: The Pacific region has widely dispersed populations, limited financial and human resources and a high burden of disease. There is an urgent need to improve the availability, reliability and timeliness of useable health data.

Context: The purpose of this paper is to share lessons learnt from a three-year pilot field epidemiology training programme that was designed to respond to these Pacific health challenges.

Short-term (1-2 mo) hormone therapy cessation before mammography.

Objective: Some healthcare providers recommend hormone therapy (HT) cessation before mammography to improve performance. Our objective was to evaluate characteristics of women willing to consider HT cessation before screening mammography.

Methods: We performed a randomized clinical trial, the Radiological Evaluation and Breast Density study, within an integrated health plan (2004-2007).

Food and botanical groupings and risk of breast cancer: a case-control study in Shanghai, China.

Breast cancer incidence rates more than double in Chinese women as they migrate from China to Hong Kong to the United States, suggesting that environmental factors contribute to the international variation in breast cancer incidence. Several dietary factors, which differ between the United States and the Chinese population, including intake of soy, meat, and fruits and vegetables, have been suggested to affect breast cancer risk. This report describes results from a case-control study of diet and risk of breast cancer nested in a randomized trial of breast self exam in Shanghai, China.

A case-control study of risk factors for fibrocystic breast conditions: Shanghai Nutrition and Breast Disease Study, China, 1995-2000.

This study was conducted to identify reproductive and dietary factors associated with benign proliferative mammary epithelial cell changes. Subjects were women enrolled in a randomized trial of breast self-examination in Shanghai, China. Women who developed fibrocystic breast conditions classified as nonproliferative (175 women), proliferative (181 women), or proliferative with atypia (33 women) between 1995 and 2000 and 1,070 unaffected trial participants were administered general risk factor and food frequency questionnaires.

Development of a cancer research study in the Shanghai textile industry.

This article describes the development of a cancer study among Shanghai textile workers. Due to the organization of work between 1949 and the 1980s, and superior record-keeping practices, it is possible to track textile workers' job tasks and workplace exposures over virtually the entirety of their working lives. The authors' experiences utilized important relationships developed over more than ten years to access work exposures and cancer outcomes.