Cohort Studies and Context: Infrastructure to Support Cancer Prevention

Prospective longitudinal cohort studies and national health datasets play a key role in understanding the mechanisms of cancer and chronic disease. The Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (CanPath) is a prospective longitudinal cohort study that supports evidence-based health decision-making using genomic, clinical and behavioural data that was provided by participant volunteers across Canada. The Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium (CANUE) is a geospatial database of environmental exposure metrics characterizing various aspects of urban form to help conceptualize the associations between urban environments and health. CanPath participants have been linked to CANUE environmental datasets using residential postal codes. This chapter provides an overview of the CanPath and CANUE data platforms. Two case studies from the BC Generations Project, a regional CanPath cohort, are included as exemplars of research utilizing these linked data. The first case study examines the relationship between the built environment and two preventable cancer risk factors: physical activity and body composition (body mass index). The second case study investigates the effects of greenness, walkability, and nitrogen dioxide air pollution on bladder cancer risk. The studies utilizing the successful linkage of geospatial environmental data from CANUE with CanPath participant data highlight the value of integrating these databases for geospatial cancer prevention research.