Breast Cancer Policies: A Systems Approach

Breast cancer continues to be one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality for women in the United States. It is estimated that every three minutes a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer and every twelve minutes a woman dies from this disease. Research has identified three potential causes for breast cancer: genetics, lifestyle choices and the environment. Genetics and lifestyle choices contribute to less than 30% of breast cancer cases; the remaining 70% of all cases can be linked to the environment and environmental carcinogens. Environmental carcinogens can be found in cosmetics, household cleaning materials, and as by products of pollution, such as PCBs and organochlorides. Elimination of environmental carcinogens would lead to prevention. Despite this fact, research funding policies tend to exclude funding for the role of environmental carcinogens which have been linked to breast cancer causation. This project applied Systems Thinking to existing research funding policies for breast cancer to determine how and why these policies exclude significant funding for research into the environment and prevention. A review of these policies revealed that there are several mental models in place that shift the burden and lead to short-term fixes, instead of prevention and long-term solutions. The results of this project can be applied to other diseases and assist in understanding why the field of environmental health focuses more on short-term fixes, rather than prevention which would provide for a long-term solution.