Nurses' Health Study I: Dietary and Hormonal Determinants of Cancer in Women
Sue Hankinson, Sc.D.
Department of Epidemiology
Harvard School of Public Health
Funded since 1973
Web site
The overall long-term objective of the Nurses' Health Study I is to identify novel dietary and hormonal determinants of breast, colorectal, and ovarian cancer risk in women, with the ultimate aim of finding means for prevention and improved survival. The combination of questionnaire-derived data with biomarkers, coupled with the long follow-up, affords the opportunity to further understanding of the time course and mechanisms of cancer development.
To achieve these objectives, the investigators are relating:
- prospectively collected data on diet, postmenopausal hormone use, smoking, and other behaviors;
- nutrient and hormone levels in prospectively collected blood; and
- genotyping information from archived DNA and tissue blocks;
to the incidence of breast colorectal, and ovarian cancer.
This research project is based on the Nurses' Health Study cohort comprising 121,700 women who were 30 to 55 years of age when enrolled in 1976. It serves as the central resource for the many related grants addressing incidence of cancer and other major chronic diseases that arise in this cohort of women.
- Project 1 - Diet, exogenous hormones, and breast cancer risk.
- Project 2 - Diet, hormones, and risk of colorectal cancer.
- Project 3 - Hormones, diet, and risk of ovarian cancer.
- Project 4 - Statistical innovations in risk modeling.
