Publications by authors named "Rena Jones"

Background: Inorganic arsenic in drinking water (wAs) is linked to atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. However, risk is uncertain at lower levels present in US community water supplies (CWS), currently regulated at the federal maximum contaminant level of .

Objectives: We evaluated the relationship between long-term wAs exposure from CWS and cardiovascular disease in the California Teachers Study cohort.

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  • Water scarcity in California is worsening due to drought, climate change, pollution, and population growth, particularly impacting drinking water in socially disadvantaged communities.
  • A study collected tap water samples from various regions, focusing on low-income areas with high breast cancer rates, analyzing a total of 251 organic and 32 inorganic contaminants.
  • Results revealed frequent mixtures of contaminants exceeding safety levels across all regions, underscoring the need for further research to link these exposures to health risks like breast cancer in vulnerable populations.
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  • The study investigated the link between agricultural pesticide use near homes in California and the levels of those pesticides found in household dust, considering factors like crop location and wind direction.
  • Researchers collected carpet dust samples from 578 homes and measured specific herbicides and fungicides, using data from the California Pesticide Use Reporting (CPUR) database.
  • Results showed that higher pesticide application densities were strongly correlated with increased pesticide concentrations in dust, with glyphosate and 2,4-D showing particularly high levels, suggesting a significant impact on residential exposure.
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Background: Childhood cancer has few established risk factors and environmental influences are underexplored. This ecologic study investigated the association between domestic radon exposure and childhood cancer risk in a large sample of United States (U.S.

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Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent chemicals of increasing concern to human health. PFAS contamination in water systems has been linked to a variety of sources including hydrocarbon fire suppression activities, industrial and military land uses, agricultural applications of biosolids, and consumer products. To assess PFAS in California tap water, we collected 60 water samples from inside homes in four different geographic regions, both urban and rural.

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Background: Chemicals emitted from industrial facilities include known or suspected mammary carcinogens and endocrine disruptors, but epidemiologic studies are limited. We evaluated associations between air emissions of multiple carcinogenic chemicals and postmenopausal breast cancer risk in a large prospective U.S.

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Environmental health research has suggested that fine particulate matter (PM) exposure can lead to high blood pressures, but it is unclear whether the impacts remain the same for systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP and DBP). This study aimed to examine whether the effects of PM exposure on SBP and DBP differ using data from a predominantly non-Hispanic Black cohort collected between 2013 and 2019 in the US. PM exposure was assessed based on a satellite-derived model across exposure durations from 1 to 36 months.

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Background: Pollutants including metals/metalloids, nitrate, disinfection byproducts, and volatile organic compounds contaminate federally regulated community water systems (CWS) and unregulated domestic wells across the United States. Exposures and associated health effects, particularly at levels below regulatory limits, are understudied.

Objective: We described drinking water sources and exposures for the California Teachers Study (CTS), a prospective cohort of female California teachers and administrators.

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Background: Industrial facilities across the United States (US) release millions of pounds of toxic chemicals, including metals. Exposure to toxic metals has been associated with adverse health outcomes, but there is limited evidence on the association between living near metal-releasing facilities and the body burden of emitted compounds.

Objective: To investigate the association between residential proximity to toxic metal-emitting industrial facilities and toenail metal concentrations and to evaluate whether associations differed by race.

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  • - The study investigates the link between living near facilities that emit polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) and the risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) within a large cohort from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study.
  • - Researchers analyzed historical data from 4,478 PCDD/F sources and assessed exposure based on distance and emissions, revealing that higher exposure levels were correlated with increased NHL risk, particularly at varying distances (3, 5, and 10 km).
  • - Specific findings highlighted a notable link between proximity to these emissions and certain subtypes of NHL, such as follicular lymphoma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma,
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Background: Fine particulate matter (PM) exposure has been associated with liver cancer incidence and mortality in a limited number of studies. We sought to evaluate this relationship for the first time in a U.S.

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Geospatial science is the science of location or place that harnesses geospatial tools, such as geographic information systems (GIS), to understand the features of the environment according to their locations. Geospatial science has been transformative for cancer epidemiologic studies through enabling large-scale environmental exposure assessments. As the research paradigm for the exposome, or the totality of environmental exposures across the life course, continues to evolve, geospatial science will serve a critical role in determining optimal practices for how to measure the environment as part of the external exposome.

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Background: Greenspace is hypothesized as being protective against cancer, whereas noise pollution and fine particulate matter (<2.5 μm in diameter, PM2.5) are both potential risk factors.

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Environmental epidemiologic studies using geospatial data often estimate exposure at a participant's residence upon enrollment, but mobility during the exposure period can lead to misclassification. We aimed to mitigate this issue by constructing residential histories for participants in the California Teachers Study through follow-up (1995-2018). Address records have been collected from the US Postal Service, LexisNexis, Experian, and California Cancer Registry.

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We synthesized the epidemiologic evidence on the associations between per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure and breast cancer risk. Our systematic review and meta-analysis included 18 and 11 articles, respectively, covering studies up to February 2023. The summary relative risks (RRs) estimated by random-effects meta-analyses did not support an association between PFAS and overall breast cancer risk (eg, a natural log (ln)-unit increase in serum/plasma concentrations [ng/mL] for perfluorooctanoate [PFOA] RR = 0.

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Nitrate levels are increasing in water resources across the United States and nitrate ingestion from drinking water has been associated with adverse health risks in epidemiologic studies at levels below the maximum contaminant level (MCL). In contrast, dietary nitrate ingestion has generally been associated with beneficial health effects. Few studies have characterized the contribution of both drinking water and dietary sources to nitrate exposure.

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Background: Outdoor air pollution is a ubiquitous exposure that includes endocrine-disrupting and carcinogenic compounds that may contribute to the risk of hormone-sensitive outcomes such as uterine cancer. However, there is limited evidence about the relationship between outdoor air pollution and uterine cancer incidence.

Methods: We investigated the associations of residential exposure to particulate matter less than 2.

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Background: Industrial facilities are not located uniformly across communities in the United States, but how the burden of exposure to carcinogenic air emissions may vary across population characteristics is unclear. We evaluated differences in carcinogenic industrial pollution among major sociodemographic groups in the United States and Puerto Rico.

Methods: We evaluated cross-sectional associations of population characteristics including race and ethnicity, educational attainment, and poverty at the census tract level with point-source industrial emissions of 21 known human carcinogens using regulatory data from the US Environmental Protection Agency.

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Introduction: The NIH All of Us Research Program has enrolled over 544,000 participants across the US with unprecedented racial/ethnic diversity, offering opportunities to investigate myriad exposures and diseases. This paper aims to investigate the association between PM exposure and cancer risks.

Materials And Methods: This work was performed on data from 409,876 All of Us Research Program participants using the All of Us Researcher Workbench.

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  • Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are chemicals linked to immunotoxic effects that can be transferred from mothers to their unborn children, but their connection to childhood leukemia had not been thoroughly researched.
  • This study analyzed maternal PFAS levels in the blood during early pregnancy and their potential association with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children under 15 years, using data from the Finnish Maternity Cohort.
  • Results indicated that higher levels of N-methyl-perfluorooctane sulfonamidoacetic acid were associated with increased leukemia risk, especially in children diagnosed before age 5, but other studied PFAS showed inconsistent associations.
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Human exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) occurs globally through contaminated food, dust, and drinking water. Studies of PFAS and thyroid cancer have been limited. We conducted a nested case-control study of prediagnostic serum levels of 19 PFAS and papillary thyroid cancer (400 cases, 400 controls) in the Finnish Maternity Cohort (pregnancies 1986-2010; follow-up through 2016), individually matched on sample year and age.

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