Mapping


	*Putting Breast Cancer on the Map - Review 2003*

In 1999 WEN completed a project called Putting Breast Cancer on the Map funded by the National Lottery (now the Community Fund). Putting Breast Cancer on the Map encouraged women throughout the UK to use their personal experiences and knowledge of their local areas, past and present, to identify possible links between environmental pollutants and the incidence of breast cancer and other environmental diseases.

Women were asked to draw maps highlighting sources of pollution and incidence of breast cancer, which they thought were linked. Over the lifetime of the project we received more than 300 maps. Women approached the task in a variety of creative ways, some drawing life maps to demonstrate exposure to pollutants in different places and stages of their lives, others drawing maps of their immediate home or work environment. The project identified a need in women to take part in positive action to bring about a change in the minds of government, the medical establishment, as well as society at large, in the way breast cancer is viewed, treated and politicised in the UK.

The maps displayed here are just a small sample of all those received. They are a visual representation of women’s collective concern about the increase in breast cancer rates. It is now the most common form of cancer in the UK and rates are rising worldwide. This exhibition shows areas where participants reported high incidence rates for breast cancer, drawing on their local knowledge. The maps cannot be taken as a comprehensive reflection of cancer rates or pollution sources throughout the UK, nor as showing that one area of the UK is more or less polluted than another. WEN considers that breast cancer is an illness symbolic of the state of our polluted environment. Steps to clean up our environment and reduce levels of contaminants that have been linked to breast cancer will have beneficial effects on all environmentally linked illnesses and disease.

More information on PBCOM is available here:

Click on the red dots to view the project maps

Drawings and quotes on this web page are from participants' maps and questionnaires of the Putting Breast Cancer on the Map project.

The italicised quotes are views expressed by the project participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of WEN.

Your map may be represented here but we do not have all the names of the people who contributed maps to the project via our many workshops, events or in the post. If you do see your map here and would like to be credited, please email to let us know. We will not give out confidential information on the project participants without their express permission.

Useful Links

We have selected some useful links to organisations, groups or coalitions either working on the connection between the environment and breast cancer, using GIS in connection with the environment and/or health, or using mapping or other participatory methods to give communities a voice.

State of the Evidence: What is the Connection between Chemicals & Breast Cancer?
Written by the Breast Cancer Fund and Breast Cancer Action in the US a very useful, up to date account of what we know, what we don’t know and what we'd like to find out.

For a full list of links click here.

We will be updating this page so please visit again.

WEN home

Health home

"I feel strongly that the Weddell Wynd landfill site should be investigated for soil contamination, because out of 92 dwellings surveyed we have 66 cancers."

Participant in Putting Breast Cancer on the Map project (1999)

"Our area was a deep mining area and has now some open cast mining. Nearby is the M.O.D. Vickers Tank factory and Leeds-Bradford Airport. A few miles away is Drax and Ferrybridge power station and Hickson and Welch paint factory. At East Garforth is a landfill site on which stands a housing estate."

Participant in Putting Breast Cancer on the Map project (1999)

"Undoubtedly living in London, with constant pollution from cars etc, has had a deleterious effect on my health. On bad days, it's almost difficult to breathe near the main roads. One doctor told me that living in Greenwich was as bad for health as smoking 5 cigarettes a day".

Participant in Putting Breast Cancer on the Map project (1999)

"Concerned that where I live and work in Reading is 10-15 miles from 3 nuclear establishments: Burghfield where nuclear weapons are constructed, Aldermaston where nuclear research is carried out, also decommissioning of nuclear weapons. There have been a number of serious leaks into the River Kennett, where part of our drinking water comes from."

Participant in Putting Breast Cancer on the Map project (1999)

"When we first moved to the countryside I used to lose my voice when they sprayed the crops. All the family suffered from a feeling of grittiness in the eyes, some light headedness, headaches, tightness in the chest etc when crops were sprayed".

Participant in Putting Breast Cancer on the Map project (1999)

"I have suddenly become aware of the possible harm from the materials I used [in and around home] when unemployed. Previously I had not been concerned about them and thought the proximity of the Sellafield and Chernobyl cloud the likely causes (or contributory factor) of my ill health. It has made me even more concerned about the future health of my children (both still at university) especially my daughter."

Participant in Putting Breast Cancer on the Map project (1999)

"We have tried to have the overhead lines removed but Secretary of State found in favour of retention of Northern Electricity equipment granting them a 15 year licence."

Participant in Putting Breast Cancer on the Map project (1999)

"My father grew all his own vegetables when I was at home and he regularly sprayed with DDT. My Mother used DDT on the windowsills to kill flies. My Mother and I were both diagnosed with breast cancer within 7 years of each other."

Participant in Putting Breast Cancer on the Map project (1999)

"I worry about living near Rechem, Esso and the Marchwood incinerator - all the toxins that belch out. Also traffic fumes and railway traffic at bottom of my garden. I live a few miles from Rechem etc but the wind blows in this direction a lot of the time."

Participant in Putting Breast Cancer on the Map project (1999)