Promoting scientific and workforce diversity by enriching the Arkansas Rural Community Health Study (ARCH) among Mother-Daughter Pairs - PROJECT SUMMARY Residents in Arkansas (AR) face high risks in generational exposure to pesticides and fertilizers from agricultural production; heavy metals such as arsenic found in the soil, water, air; and aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, benzo[a]pyrene) from frequent burning of trash, crop and timber residues, and high-temperature cooking. Arkansas Rural Community Health Study (ARCH) is the first and the largest epidemiologic cohort of adult women in AR to examine the effects of both genetic and environmental exposures (EE) on an individual’s risk of developing breast cancer (BC) and predicted response to treatment. In total, the institutional-supported ARCH cohort has 26,375 women from all 75 AR counties. In contrast to most cohorts conducted among populations well below average risk, ARCH is enriched with a high rate of early-onset breast cancer (EOBC) cases among all BC prevalent cases at baseline and incident cases when linked with Arkansas Cancer Registry. Given increasing incidence of EOBC nationwide, it is crucial to invest in an understudied rural population with generations of exposure to identify factors responsible for increasing risk and the mechanisms underlying EOBC etiology. Our goal is to maintain, enrich, and enable a broader use of data and sample resources for the ARCH cohort by facilitating longitudinal follow-up since the baseline recruitment 17 years ago. By partnering with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Translational Research Institute and Rural Research Network, we will have the unprecedented opportunity to leverage the existing 8 UAMS Regional Campuses to target recruitment efforts among existing mother-daughter pairs especially in the rural and underrepresented minority (URM) communities for additional biospecimen and exposure surveys, especially during key windows of susceptibility. The project will promote widespread data sharing and scientific collaborations, while strengthening scientific and workforce diversity in environmental health with the goal to 1) expand our collaboration and hiring of URM faculty and staff, 2) enrich the cohort with environmental constructs and social determinants of health, 3) follow up existing ARCH participants, focusing on the mother–daughter pairs to understand generational exposures in the rural state, and 4) develop an interactive dashboard to facilitate data sharing and sample request. The proposed project will enrich the established ARCH cohort in AR with insurance- cancer registry databases, EE and biospecimens (saliva, urine, blood - including viable immune cells) since the baseline recruitment. The collaboration with RRN will ensure enrollment of rural and URM populations and the target follow-up of mother–daughter pairs will allow future research on generational exposure, modifiable lifestyle factors, and genetics contributing to EOBC etiology. The implementation of an interactive dashboard will further facilitate broader use of data and sample resources for future projects to identify interventions on cancer health disparities, prevention strategies, and to support development and treatment of cancer immunotherapy.
