Grant Number:	1R21CA297724-01A1 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Thompson, Hannah
Organization:	Icahn School Of Medicine At Mount Sinai
Project Title:	Childhood Cancer and Environmental Events (C2E2): Geospatial Mapping and Risk Perception in the Childhood Cancer Community
Fiscal Year:	2026

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT There is growing evidence that environmental events have effects across the cancer care continuum. For the pediatric cancer community, little is known about the burden of such events on this population. Given the recent focus on extreme weather events by cancer organizations, such as the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, there is a need to center this research in the affected population and understand their perception of environmental events in relation to their cancer journey. There is also a need to evaluate current knowledge around resources and clinical tools to reduce risk from environmental events with a focus on the cancer community. Our study uses mixed methods to evaluate environmental events in the pediatric cancer community. We will leverage national pediatric cancer outcome and environmental event data to identify areas of the United States that have elevated risk of environmental events and elevated rates of pediatric cancer. Additional analyses will identify socioeconomic factors that may be associated with these events. Qualitative work on a regional level will inform our understanding of how environmental events are perceived among pediatric cancer caregivers and healthcare professionals. Focus groups will include representation from multiple United States’ environmental regions to ensure a variety of perspectives. Informed by these results and leveraging a national pediatric environmental health clinical network, we will create educational materials and clinical tools to respond to key themes and knowledge gaps identified. Through quantitative and qualitative approaches, our study is poised to be on the forefront of cutting-edge environmental research – translating environmental exposure science into the clinical setting. While leveraging national, geospatial data to characterize the current burden of environmental events in pediatric cancer patients is important, our study takes it a step further to center this work on the affected community. We will identify their perceived risk of environmental events and use the results to provide a platform for future research focused on improving clinical integration of environmental health concerns for this community and their healthcare professionals to reduce risks and stressors from environmental events.





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