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A new initiative to study exactly why African-Americans and Hispanics have higher rates of diseases, particularly breast cancer, was announced by Deputy Health and Human Services Secretary Claude Allen in Chicago earlier this month.

The University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago will be among eight centers nationwide designated as Centers for Population Health and Health Disparities.

Sarah Gehlert, associate professor in the U. of C. School of Social Service Administration, called the project "a new approach to uncovering why there are disproportionate rates of breast cancer in minority women" as well as higher mortality rates.

Black women are stricken with breast cancer at a younger age and it is a "more lethal and aggressive" form of cancer, she said at a joint news conference. U. of C. will try to determine if social isolation and stress contribute to the disparity.

Richard Warnecke, associate director of Cancer Control and Population Science at the University of Illinois-Chicago's Cancer Center, said that his institution would examine how a woman's neighborhood, social network (family, friends, other community contacts) and psychological profile, including issues of faith and fear, come into play when breast cancer is suspected.

Warnecke noted that compared with Caucasians, African-American women are twice as likely, and Hispanic women 1.5 times as likely, to die within five years following a breast cancer diagnosis.

UIC will work with community representatives from the Pullman, West Pullman Roseland and South Chicago neighborhoods and suburban Riverdale to carry out its research. U. of C. will concentrate on African-American women and Nigerian women living in various South Side neighborhoods to look at environmental influences on genetics.

U. of C. will receive a $9.7 million federal grant while UIC will receive $7.28 million through the National Institutes of Health.

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