Cancer

Loved one’s death could spur aggressive measures against breast cancer

Women whose family members or friends died of cancer were far more likely to approach prevention aggressively than were those whose loved ones survived the disease, found a team of researchers at The Ohio State University.

“The cancer of someone you care about is a lens through which you interpret your own risk,” says Tasleem Padamsee, PhD, an assistant professor of health services management and policy at the College of Public Health and lead author of the study, which appears in the Journal of Health Psychology.

Researchers seek to identify specific carcinogens affecting firefighters

CPH researchers Susan Olivo-Marston, PhD, MPH, Olorunfemi Adetona, PhD, and Darryl Hood, PhD, are building off of this study to find ways to improve firefighters’ occupational safety.

The team will use biological markers in firefighters to identify which specific contaminants emitted in structural fire smoke are associated with cancer.

Olivo-Marston, assistant professor of epidemiology, hopes this study will give fire departments a better idea of how to reduce the risk of cancer in their workforce.