Grant: Fellowship: Canada Impact+ Research Training Awards - Postdoctoral

"High cancer incidence affects many families in Cape Breton Island (CBI), and some communities experience higher cancer rates than others. This may reflect the region’s unique industrial, settlement, and geological history. While lifestyle and access to healthcare are important contributors, environmental exposures such as indoor radon, drinking water contaminants, and legacy industrial pollution may also play a role. This project aims to understand whether environmental factors are associated with elevated cancer risk in specific CBI communities. This project will develop a CBI-wide screening framework using machine learning to identify priority communities and environmental exposure pathways that warrant further investigation, public health assessment, and community-informed risk reduction. By integrating health, demographic, socioeconomic, historical land-use, and targeted environmental data, we will identify communities where elevated cancer risk and environmental exposures may overlap and uncover patterns that may not be apparent through conventional analysis. This project will generate practical information to support public decision-making, guide targeted interventions such as radon mitigation or water quality improvements, and inform future studies. The framework may also serve as a useful model for other regions with similar environmental health challenges."