The Research On Childhood Cancer And Health Studies Panel featured Dr. Lauren Minsky who helped develop the PCIST - People’s Cancer Incidence Screening Tool-- to generate an accurate history of crude cancer rates in Pennsylvania at the city, township, borough and county level.
The PCIST tool covers primary invasive cancers in twenty-three leading sites in the body using data from 2002-2021.
The elevated cancer rates in many communities strongly suggest the significance of legacy pollution.
Prior industries leave behind soil, water, workers, and residents contaminated by carcinogenic substances that do not readily break down, including persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, and radioactive waste.
So far, the PCIST tool has developed Community Cancer Incidence Reports for communities in Delaware County [with refineries, a waste incinerator and other industrial sources] and Washington County [the most “fracked” county in PA].
Bucks and Montgomery counties have been added recently.
As evident in the CCIR reports, Dr. Minsky said the “cancer signals” for these heavily-polluted counties are striking – and, sadly, often devastating.
This is especially the case for communities located in areas of active fossil fuel mining, drilling, fracking, refining, and waste processing.
If you don’t see a Cancer Incidence Report for your community, or don’t see your county listed here yet, feel free to email and make a request: PCIST@pm.me.
The following Physicians for Social Responsibility- PA Blog Post from Dr. Lauren Minsky describes how the tool was developed and what it can and can't tell communities.
Ever wonder about cancer rates in your community but struggle to get answers? PCIST is the People’s Cancer Incidence Screening Tool, a newly developed public health resource for Pennsylvania residents.
It was first created in January 2025 as a partnership between Lauren Minsky, an environmental health historian at Haverford College, and organized groups of concerned citizens in southeastern Delaware county.
In this environmental justice region, community members – led by Zulene Mayfield and Nolan Fontaine at Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living (CRCQL), and joined by Echo Alford, Thom Nixon and Lora Snyder at Marcus Hook Area Neighbors for Public Health (MHANPH) – were seeking information about cancer incidence in their local municipalities, townships, and boroughs.
They had valid concerns that multiple pollutant exposures – stemming from major oil and gas refineries, waste incinerators, and chemical plants – were causing cancers to become more prevalent among their families and neighbors, including their children and youth.
However, they kept hearing that “there is no local cancer data” or “that’s impossible data to get” or “things like that come down to random chance”.
Data On 23 Types Of Cancers
After working over the course of several months to develop and refine the PCIST tool, our project formally launched in June 2025 with the power to generate an accurate history of crude cancer rates for all of Pennsylvania’s cities, towns, and boroughs.
The PCIST tool covers primary invasive cancers in twenty-three leading sites in the body: bladder and urinary tract; blood (leukemia, myeloma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma); brain and nervous system; breast; cervix; colon and rectum; esophagus; kidney and renal; larynx; liver and bile duct system; lung and bronchi; mouth and pharynx; ovaries; pancreas; prostate; skin (melanoma); stomach; testes; thyroid; and uterus.
We include all sites in every analysis because narrowing down the cancer types can prevent us from seeing unexpectedly significant “cancer signals” in a single community, as well as common signals among communities with shared air and drinking water sources and/or pollutant exposures.
With PCIST, we generate average annual crude cancer incidence rates over a twenty-year period, from 2002-2021.
We work with this long interval of time because cancer takes years to develop.
In small towns and boroughs, there are also significant fluctuations in the annual case counts of rarer types of cancer, which makes it important to calculate average annual incidence rates over many years.
By producing cancer rates over a twenty-year period, we are also able to identify which cancers are stable, lessening, or growing as problems for a given community.
Additionally, we run our calculations for each community’s total population, as well as broken down by gender and age.
We prioritize these demographics because age and gendered differences in physiology, as well as exposure to pollutants, affect cancer incidence.
Community Cancer Incident Reports
Our final and most important step is to swiftly release the results of our calculations in Community Cancer Incidence Reports (CCIR).
Our priority at PCIST is “experiential significance”. We always share what actually happened.
We never a priori suppress, [refers to the act of preventing, removing, or ignoring certain data, variables, or outcomes before an analysis, simulation, or observation takes place, based on a preconceived assumption, model, or theoretical framework] or explain away, cancer data on the grounds that it fails to meet abstract standards of “statistical significance”.
Our CCIR reports detail any elevations greater than 10% in a community’s cancer numbers as compared with the corresponding US, PA, and all-county figures.
By using multiple reference populations – national, state and county – we provide a nuanced perspective on each community’s relative crude cancer incidence.
For environmental justice areas, we additionally produce a regional report that combines the cancer rates of contiguous towns.
All of our CCIR reports are freely downloadable on our project website, where we also offer a more detailed explanation of our project rationale, our approach and sources, and a step-by-step guide to aid interpretation of our reports.
Cancer Signals
When launching PCIST this summer [2025], we began in Delaware and Washington counties at either end of southern Pennsylvania’s fossil fuel pipelines. [It now includes Bucks and Montgomery.]
As evident in our CCIR reports, the “cancer signals” for both of these heavily-polluted counties are striking – and, sadly, often devastating.
This is especially the case for communities located in areas of active fossil fuel mining, drilling, fracking, refining, and waste processing.
Cumulative Impacts
PCIST data strongly substantiates residents’ concerns about the cumulative effects of pollutant exposures on their rates of many types of cancer, including among their children and youth.
PCIST data also reveals that all communities experience some elevated cancer rates – a reality that is not surprising, but is perhaps underappreciated by many residents.
Air blows and water flows from heavily polluted sources to locations far and wide.
Cancerous pollution also takes many forms, including widespread residential and recreational pesticide and herbicide use.
The elevated cancer rates in many communities also strongly suggest the significance of legacy pollution.
Prior industries – from mills to quarries and mines – frequently leave behind soil, water, workers, and residents contaminated by carcinogenic substances that do not readily break down, including persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, and radioactive waste.
At PCIST, we share common cause with everyone working at the intersection of cumulative impacts, environmental health, and climate change.
At present, our team finds purpose in seeing how our CCIR reports are already proving useful as informative aids for educating, organizing, connecting, and empowering communities across southern Pennsylvania.
We are also grateful to be working with a growing network of experienced and skilled partner organizations in the fields of environmental health and environmental justice, now including Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Next Steps
As we look to the future, we are committed to bringing PCIST to all Pennsylvanian communities, as well as to communities in Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and West Virginia as our neighbors in the Delaware and Ohio river basins.
We believe that every community, every family, and every case of cancer is significant and “counts”.
Ultimately, we hope that our rigorous, historically-grounded approach to generating local cancer data and analyses – soon to include layered maps – will continue to shine a spotlight on the “self-devouring” consequences of how our society produces and consumes its fossil fuel energy, food, industrial goods and waste by-products.
We will also use our rapidly expanding database of community cancer rates to support any researchers and epidemiologists who want to undertake specialized studies of the historical relationship between specific chemical exposures and types of cancer.
Perhaps someday, our PCIST database will even be useful for physicians who want to assess and to mitigate their patients contextualized cancer risks – approaching the practice of oncology and cancer prevention from a community environmental health, as much as from a genetic and behavioral, perspective.
Cancer is not our destiny.
As PCIST looks to the future, we warmly welcome all feedback, collaboration, and support.
Please visit us at the PCIST - People’s Cancer Incidence Screening Tool website to learn more and join our effort.
Request Information
If you don’t see a Cancer Incidence Report for your community, or don’t see your county listed here yet, feel free to email and make a request: PCIST@pm.me.
PA Shale Gas and Public Health Conference
Recordings of the presentations at the PA League of Women Voters, Physicians For Social Responsibility PA and Duquesne University will be available at the PA Shale Gas and Public Health Conference webpage in the near future.
(From Community Cancer Incidence Report for Cecil Township, Washington County.)
Related Articles This Week:
-- PA Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Supervisor Cindy Fisher - How Cecil Township Adopted 2,500 Foot Setbacks From Shale Gas Well Pads With Extensive Public Involvement Facing Threats And Intimidation [PaEN]
-- PA Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Dr. Lauren Minsky - People’s Cancer Incidence Screening Tool Reports Cancer Rates In Washington County Up To 16 Times Higher Than PA Averages [PaEN]
-- Ohio Senate Committee Hearing I: Penn State Professor Testifies In Support Of A Ban On The Disposal Of Conventional Oil & Gas Wastewater By Road Dumping [PaEN]
-- Ohio Senate Committee Hearing II: Studies By Ohio State Agencies Document Environmental, Health Hazards Of Disposing Of Oil & Gas Wastewater By Road Dumping [PaEN]
-- Ohio Senate Committee Hearing III: Ohio Farmers Union Supports Ban On Disposal Of Oil & Gas Wastewater By Road Dumping To Protect Soil, Livestock, Farm Products From Contamination [PaEN]
-- The Derrick: Aqua Pennsylvania Boil Water Advisory Remains In Effect For Venango Water Company Customers In Reno, Venango County Since Feb. 14 [Water System Impacted By 2023 Conventional Oil Well Wastewater Spill] [PaEN]
-- Independent Fiscal Office Reports 2025 PA Natural Gas Production Up 5.1% Over 2024; Average Natural Gas Prices Up 70.9% From 2024 [PaEN]
[Posted: February 26, 2026] PA Environment Digest
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