Participant perspectives related to individual chemical exposure report-back approaches in three environmental health studies.

Returning results to participants of environmental exposure studies has become more common in recent years. Despite evidence of benefits for study participants, there are challenges in communicating results to people with limited resources or capacity to mitigate chemical exposures. We interviewed N = 54 participants and compared exposure report-back conducted in 2010-2013 across three susceptible study populations: 1) low-income pregnant individuals in the Chemicals in Our Bodies (CIOB) study; 2) the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) cohort; and 3) early childhood educators (ECE).

Application of the Key Characteristics Framework to Identify Potential Breast Carcinogens Using Publicly Available , , and Data.

Background: Chemicals that induce mammary tumors in rodents or activate estrogen or progesterone signaling are likely to increase breast cancer (BC) risk. Identifying chemicals with these activities can prompt steps to protect human health.

Objectives: We compiled data on rodent tumors, endocrine activity, and genotoxicity to assess the key characteristics (KCs) of rodent mammary carcinogens (MCs), and to identify other chemicals that exhibit these effects and may therefore increase BC risk.

Moving Forward with Reporting Back Individual Environmental Health Research Results.

Background: The practice of reporting back individual results to participants in environmental health research has evolved significantly over the past 20 years. Research findings support the potential of report-back to enhance the ethics, quality, and impact of environmental health research. Nonetheless, implementation of environmental health report-back practices is not yet routine.

The Effect of Individual or Study-Wide Report-Back on Knowledge, Concern, and Exposure-Reducing Behaviors Related to Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals.

Background: To make informed decisions about endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), people need functional understanding of exposures and health and an ability to act on their knowledge. The return of biomonitoring results is an opportunity to educate people about EDCs and motivate exposure reduction.

Objectives: This study investigates environmental health knowledge about EDCs, concerns about health effects, and exposure-reducing behaviors before and after the return of individual-level exposure results or only study-wide results.

Translating community-based participatory research into broadscale sociopolitical change: insights from a coalition of women firefighters, scientists, and environmental health advocates.

Background: We report on community-based participatory research (CBPR) initiated by women firefighters in order to share successful elements that can be instructive for other community-engaged research. This CBPR initiative, known as the Women Worker Biomonitoring Collaborative (WWBC) is the first we are aware of to investigate links between occupational exposures and health outcomes, including breast cancer, for a cohort of exclusively women firefighters.

Methods: In order to be reflective of the experiences and knowledge of those most intimately involved, this article is co-authored by leaders of the research initiative.

Mi PROTECT: A personalized smartphone platform to report back results to participants of a maternal-child and environmental health research cohort program in Puerto Rico.

Background: The PROTECT Center is a multi-project initiative that studies the relationship between exposure to environmental contaminants and preterm births during the prenatal and postnatal period among women living in Puerto Rico. PROTECT's Community Engagement Core and Research Translation Coordinator (CEC/RTC) play a key role in building trust and capacity by approaching the cohort as an engaged community that provides feedback about processes, including how personalized results of their exposure to chemicals should be reported back. The goal of the Mi PROTECT platform was to create a mobile-based application of DERBI (Digital Exposure Report-Back Interface) for our cohort that provides tailored, culturally appropriate information about individual contaminant exposures as well as education on chemical substances and approaches to exposure reduction.

Perspectives of peripartum people on opportunities for personal and collective action to reduce exposure to everyday chemicals: Focus groups to inform exposure report-back.

Participants in biomonitoring studies who receive personal exposure reports seek information to reduce exposures. Many chemical exposures are driven by systems-level policies rather than individual actions; therefore, change requires engagement in collective action. Participants' perceptions of collective action and use of report-back to support engagement remain unclear.

Outcomes from Returning Individual versus Only Study-Wide Biomonitoring Results in an Environmental Exposure Study Using the Digital Exposure Report-Back Interface (DERBI).

Background: Study participants want to receive their biomonitoring results for environmental chemicals, and ethics guidelines encourage reporting back. However, few studies have quantitively assessed participants' responses to individual exposure reports, and digital methods have not been evaluated.

Objectives: We isolated effects of receiving personal results vs.

Influence of living in the same home on biomonitored levels of consumer product chemicals.

Background: Individuals living in the same home may share exposures from direct contact with sources or indirectly through contamination of the home environment.

Objective: We investigated the influence of sharing a home on urine levels of ten phenolic chemicals present in some consumer products.

Methods: We used data from Silent Spring Institute's Detox Me Action Kit (DMAK), a crowdsourced biomonitoring program in the US.

Consumer behavior and exposure to parabens, bisphenols, triclosan, dichlorophenols, and benzophenone-3: Results from a crowdsourced biomonitoring study.

Nearly all Americans have detectable concentrations of endocrine disrupting chemicals from consumer products in their bodies, and expert panels recommend reducing exposures. To inform exposure reduction, we investigated whether consumers who are trying to avoid certain chemicals in consumer products have lower exposures than those who are not. We also aimed to make exposure biomonitoring more widely available.

Rethinking Environmental Carcinogenesis.

The 2010 report of the President's Cancer Panel concluded that the burden of cancer from chemical exposures is substantial, while the programs for testing and regulation of carcinogens remain inadequate. New research on the role of early life exposures and the ability of chemicals to act via multiple biological pathways, including immunosuppression, inflammation, and endocrine disruption as well as mutagenesis, further supports the potential for chemicals and chemical mixtures to influence disease. Epidemiologic observations, such as higher leukemia incidence in children living near roadways and industrial sources of air pollution, and new technologies that decode carcinogenesis at the molecular level, illustrate the diverse evidence that primary prevention of some cancers may be achieved by reducing harmful chemical exposures.

Data Clothing and BigBarChart: Designing Physical Data Reports on Indoor Pollutants for Individuals and Communities.

In response to participant preferences and new ethics guidelines, researchers are increasingly sharing data with health study participants, including data on their own household chemical exposures. Data physicalization may be a useful tool for these communications, because it is thought to be accessible to a general audience and emotionally engaged. However, there are limited studies of data physicalization in the wild with diverse communities.

Perceived Risks, Benefits, and Interest in Participating in Environmental Health Studies That Share Personal Exposure Data: A U.S. Survey of Prospective Participants.

Little is known about the willingness of prospective study participants to share environmental health data. To fill this gap, we conducted a hypothetical vignette survey among 1,575 women who have volunteered to be contacted about breast cancer studies. Eighty-three percent were interested in participating in the environmental studies, with little difference whether data were restricted to the research team, shared with approved researchers, or publicly accessible.

Barriers and opportunities for breast cancer organizations to focus on environmental health and disease prevention: a mixed-methods approach using website analyses, interviews, and focus groups.

Background: Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women worldwide and most cases are not due to high risk inherited genes. In response, breast cancer activists successfully advocated for innovative research on environmental chemical exposures as a possible cause. Since then, new evidence supports hypotheses that common industrial and consumer chemicals are linked to the disease, and expert panels recommend reducing exposures.

Privacy Risks of Sharing Data from Environmental Health Studies.

Background: Sharing research data uses resources effectively; enables large, diverse data sets; and supports rigor and reproducibility. However, sharing such data increases privacy risks for participants who may be re-identified by linking study data to outside data sets. These risks have been investigated for genetic and medical records but rarely for environmental data.

Serum concentrations of PFASs and exposure-related behaviors in African American and non-Hispanic white women.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are used in a wide range of consumer products for their water- and grease-resistant properties, but few studies have explored this exposure route. We used multiple regression to investigate associations between six self-reported behaviors hypothesized to influence PFAS exposure and serum concentrations of six PFAS chemicals in 178 middle-aged women enrolled in the Child Health and Development Studies, about half of whom are African American. Blood samples were collected in 2010-2013, and participants were interviewed about behavior in 2015-2016.

Reporting to parents on children's exposures to asthma triggers in low-income and public housing, an interview-based case study of ethics, environmental literacy, individual action, and public health benefits.

Background: Emerging evidence about the effects of endocrine disruptors on asthma symptoms suggests new opportunities to reduce asthma by changing personal environments. Right-to-know ethics supports returning personal results for these chemicals to participants, so they can make decisions to reduce exposures. Yet researchers and institutional review boards have been reluctant to approve results reports in low-income communities, which are disproportionately affected by asthma.

Measurement of endocrine disrupting and asthma-associated chemicals in hair products used by Black women.

Background: Personal care products are a source of exposure to endocrine disrupting and asthma-associated chemicals. Because use of hair products differs by race/ethnicity, these products may contribute to exposure and disease disparities.

Objective: This preliminary study investigates the endocrine disrupting and asthma-associated chemical content of hair products used by U.

Environmental Determinants of Breast Cancer.

In the United States, breast cancer is the most common invasive malignancy and the second most common cause of death from cancer in women. Reproductive factors, estrogen, and progesterone have major causal roles, but concerns about other potential causes in the external environment continue to drive research inquiries and stimulate calls for action at the policy level. The environment is defined as anything that is not genetic and includes social, built, and chemical toxicant aspects.

Research altruism as motivation for participation in community-centered environmental health research.

Protection of human subjects in research typically focuses on extrinsic rather than intrinsic motivations for participation in research. Recent sociological literature on altruism suggests that multiple kinds of altruism exist and are grounded in a sense of connection to common humanity. We interviewed participants in eight community-centered research studies that sampled for endocrine disrupting compounds and that shared research findings with participants.

Environmental chemicals and breast cancer: An updated review of epidemiological literature informed by biological mechanisms.

Background: Many common environmental chemicals are mammary gland carcinogens in animal studies, activate relevant hormonal pathways, or enhance mammary gland susceptibility to carcinogenesis. Breast cancer's long latency and multifactorial etiology make evaluation of these chemicals in humans challenging.

Objective: For chemicals previously identified as mammary gland toxicants, we evaluated epidemiologic studies published since our 2007 review.

DERBI: A Digital Method to Help Researchers Offer "Right-to-Know" Personal Exposure Results.

Researchers and clinicians in environmental health and medicine increasingly show respect for participants and patients by involving them in decision-making. In this context, the return of personal results to study participants is becoming ethical best practice, and many participants now expect to see their data. However, researchers often lack the time and expertise required for report-back, especially as studies measure greater numbers of analytes, including many without clear health guidelines.

Re-identification Risks in HIPAA Safe Harbor Data: A study of data from one environmental health study.

Researchers are increasingly asked to share research data as part of publication and funding processes and to maximize the benefits of publicly funded research. The Safe Harbor provision of the U.S.