The Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Centers (BCERC) is a network of four national centers created in September 2003, by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Cancer Institute to support transdisciplinary teams of scientists, clinicians, and breast cancer advocates to study the impact of prenatal-to-adult environmental exposures that may predispose a woman to breast cancer.

The research at each Center includes a biology study, an epidemiology study, and a Community-based Outreach and Translation Core (COTC). The joint research being conducted by the Centers is based on the hypothesis that chemical, physical, and social factors in the environment interact with genetic factors to affect mammary gland development during puberty and across the lifespan in ways that can alter breast cancer risk in later life.

The overall outcomes of BCERC will be used to develop public health messages designed to educate young girls and women who are at high risk of breast cancer about the role(s) of specific environmental stressors in breast cancer and how to reduce exposures to those stressors.