Community Members and Researchers to Discuss Geographic Differences in Health

Author Details

Catherine Thomsen

Research Director
Organization: Zero Breast Cancer

Go to Zero Breast Cancer

Zero Breast Cancer is hosting a unique and important workshop: GIS for Community Impact: From Technology to Translation on April 14 in Oakland. We are bringing together academic, public health, and community health partners to explore how geographic data contribute to our understanding of environmental and social factors that impact our health, especially cancer risk.

The workshop will focus on using breast cancer risk as a model for how to use GIS to help aid in health promotion and disease prevention efforts. According to the 2013 federal report, Breast Cancer and the Environment: Prioritizing Prevention, we need to pay more attention to our environment, including access to healthy foods and physical activity spaces, exposures to chemicals (pesticides, pollution, and drugs), and radiation. These factors are most likely to affect low-income and communities of color, which may have different susceptibility due to social stressors. 

Join us for an interactive day of discovering how we can advance cancer research and focus prevention on those communities with the greatest risk. Register today!

The workshop will feature:

  • Case studies of how researchers have used GIS to explore breast cancer risk factors
  • Community organizations demonstrating how they translate and apply geographic data 
    • A pre-workshop short-course of GIS training will be offered on 4/13

We also have a great lineup of speakers, including:
Adriana Morieko, Stanford University (formerly of Latinas Contra Cancer)
Eric Roberts, Public Health Institute
Geoffrey Jacquez, University of Buffalo
Irene Yen, UC San Francisco
Janice Barlow and Catherine Thomsen, Zero Breast Cancer
Nancy Buermeyer, Breast Cancer Fund
Paul English, California Department of Public Health
Peggy Reynolds, Scarlett Gomez, and Salma Shariff-Marco, Cancer Prevention Institute of California
Sarah de Guia, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network