By David Taylor / Managing editor
After more than a year of repeated requests and more than a decade of community advocacy, Harris County officials have released long‑awaited, localized cancer data that residents say is critical to understanding health risks in their neighborhoods.
Harris County Public Health this week unveiled a new cancer assessment and an interactive mapping tool that provides cancer incidence data at the census‑tract level across the county. The release marks a major shift from previous state analyses that grouped large geographic areas together, often masking neighborhood‑level patterns.
While the effort was driven by concerns in East Harris County, particularly along the San Jacinto River corridor, the new data is available countywide and offers the most detailed public look yet at local cancer trends.
“This is a major win for our communities,” said Jackie Medcalf, founder and CEO of the Texas Health and Environment Alliance. “Residents have been asking for local, census‑level cancer data so they can understand what’s happening where they live. We submitted hundreds of community letters to the state asking for that level of transparency and were repeatedly denied. Harris County stepped up and delivered.”
Concerns about cancer rates in East Harris County date back at least to 2010, when residents living near the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund Site began pressing state officials to investigate potential health impacts from decades of dioxin contamination. Those efforts eventually led to the Texas Department of State Health Services’ first cancer assessment for the area in 2015.
That assessment identified elevated rates of several cancers, including a rare eye cancer linked to dioxin exposure that appeared in the riverfront community of Highlands at more than 16 times the state average. A subsequent state update released in 2025 again flagged concerns, pointing to higher rates of leukemia, lymphoma, lung and bronchus cancers, and cervical cancer across a study area spanning more than 250 square miles.
Community leaders, however, said those findings fell short because they relied on broad geographic groupings that made it difficult to identify specific hotspots.
“Our community is exposed to so many different toxic chemicals and pollutants through our air, water and soil from the petrochemical, marine and other industries surrounding and embedded within our community,” said Carolyn Stone, president of the Channelview Health and Improvement Coalition. “The impacts to our health are something we have to worry about and experience far too often.”
At the request of the Harris County Attorney’s Office and Harris County Pollution Control Services, Harris County Public Health conducted a more localized analysis using available data. The county released both a written report focused on East Harris County and an interactive GIS map that shows cancer incidence by census tract throughout Harris County.
Within the East Harris County study area, often described as the San Jacinto River floodplain, the census‑level analysis identified elevated rates of numerous cancers, including breast, cervical, colon, kidney, leukemia, lymphoma, pancreatic, prostate, rectal, liver, lung and bronchus, and skin cancers. Brain cancer rates were elevated in more than 15 census tracts in the study area.
Advocates emphasized that the release is significant not only because of the data itself, but because of how the information is presented and compared.
“Access to data is only part of the equation—how it’s analyzed shapes what you see,” Medcalf said.
The county’s report allows users to compare cancer rates against both Harris County averages and statewide Texas averages, a distinction community advocates say is critical.
“In a county like Harris County, where overall disease burden can already be high, comparing a neighborhood only to the county can mask disparities,” Medcalf said. “Comparing to the state helps reveal where rates are truly elevated.”
THEA also noted that methodological decisions, including how small case counts are handled, can affect what information is visible in smaller communities. Medcalf said the organization still has questions about how some data were suppressed and how that may limit what residents can see.
Even so, the group praised county officials for responding directly to long‑standing community concerns.
“This is what it looks like when institutions listen to residents and take action,” Medcalf said. “Harris County didn’t just release data—they made it accessible, local and usable.”
Harris County Public Health plans to host a public webinar to walk residents through the assessment and explain its key findings. Advocates say the release is not the end of the discussion, but the beginning of a more informed one.
“Communities fought for this data,” Medcalf said. “Now we use it to drive accountability.”
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