Immigrant Women More Exposed to Breast Cancer Risks At Work

When doctors talk about breast cancer risk, they tend to focus on genetics, age, and certain lifestyle factors like smoking or drinking—not work. But a new peer-reviewed study suggests that U.S. immigrant women’s jobs may compound their risk of breast cancer.  

Researchers at the Silent Spring Institute, a Massachusetts-based lab, cross-referenced national labor data with findings from the Women’s Occupational Risk from Chemicals Project, to identify which jobs carry the greatest risks of exposure to “breast cancer-relevant chemicals” (BCRCs). These chemicals are known to interfere with hormones or damage DNA in ways that can raise breast cancer risk. 

The study, published in October 2025 in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, found that immigrant women are disproportionately employed in occupations with a high potential of exposure to BCRCs. These include roles where people come into more frequent contact with antimicrobials, phthalates, and other cleaning and maintenance products linked to cancer. 

The researchers found that immigrant women with less education and limited English proficiency are more likely to work in the kind of lower-wage, physically demanding jobs where exposure to BCRCs is higher. These are the very roles that keep hospitals, homes, and communities running—and they’re putting workers’ lives at risk.

The paper marks what the lead author, Kristin Knox, described to Rewire News Group as a “pilot.” The Silent Spring Institute—which was founded in 1994 by activists from the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition following their discovery of a local breast cancer cluster on Cape Cod, Mass.—has now identified more than 900 “mammary toxicants” that may be linked to breast cancer, which will inform its future research on occupation-specific chemical exposures. 

RNG spoke with Knox, a data scientist who studies health hazards, to learn more about what the study means for the millions of immigrant women working in the U.S., and how it will shape the organization’s future research on job-related breast cancer risks.

The original interview was conducted via video. It has been edited for length and clarity, and includes information from emailed follow-ups.

What is your main takeaway from what you’ve found so far? 

The most common jobs held by immigrant women include house cleaners, nurses, cashiers, janitors, and care aides. Among those jobs, house cleaners and nurses face the highest potential chemical exposures. … 

[This study] was an attempt to figure out what occupations we should focus on more. …

The other thing I want to point out—we’re highlighting occupations that are relevant for immigrant women and that have a high likelihood of breast cancer-relevant exposures. But those breast cancer exposures are not just relevant for immigrant women in those occupations, they’re relevant for all women in those occupations. 

What do you think this means for these workers?

One of the authors on the paper, Jenny Ohayon, has a background in qualitative research … She was conducting focus groups and interviews trying to understand how much control these women have in their workplace. How much training are they getting in terms of wearing the right personal protective equipment and what procedure they should be following if they need to use a certain hazardous substance? 

We’re most worried about the occupations where there are exposures that are bad, and the workers aren’t really empowered to try and change them. Part of that is a worker power issue, but part of it is also an education issue. 

Why are so many toxic chemicals being used in the first place? 

In the United States, you don’t test [many] chemicals [for potential toxicity] before you put them into products. It’s very different than Europe. 

The EU takes a precautionary approach to chemicals, whereas the U.S. takes a more reactionary approach. More specifically, in the EU, generally, companies have to submit results from safety testing before they can use a chemical in a product, whereas in the U.S., companies aren’t required to demonstrate safety before use.

Why do you feel like this is important research to be doing right now? 

Women’s occupational exposures, like much of women’s health, is completely understudied. … All the early occupational studies were only on men … and although they can get breast cancer, it’s very rare. For me, this is just focusing research on [women]. …We think that many of these chemicals are relevant for breast cancer because they do things to our hormone levels, and obviously women’s hormones are very different from men’s hormones.

Is there anything I haven’t asked that you think is important to let people know about this study? 

My hope is that people will start to educate themselves, and rather than just assume that the world around us and the products on our shelves are safe, accept that this isn’t always the case. 

Not that the onus should be on the individual, but at least there are things you can do to educate yourself and lower your exposures. 

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