As part of a multi-site federal program to develop centers for the study of population health and health disparities, the group of research projects comprising CIHDR was started in order to explore and understand why Black women have a higher incidence of mortality from breast cancer then White women. Black women in the US and West Africa develop breast cancers that occur at a younger age and are more aggressive and lethal then those experienced by White women of Northern European ancestry. Center investigators, in projects that build on and inform one another, will take a multi-level approach to understanding Black-White disparities in breast cancer.

The University of Chicago established the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Disparities Research (CIHDR), which will be based at the University's Institute for Mind and Biology. Drawing on the diverse talents of social workers, psychologists, physicians and molecular geneticists, CIHDR will explore the possible causes of breast cancer in African-American women by examining medical reasons as well as social stress impacts.

The Center will be utilizing the talents of Director Sarah Gehlert Ph.D., Helen Ross Professor at the School of Social Service Administration and Co-Director Martha McClintock Ph.D., the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology. CIDHR's faculty will include Christopher Masi, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Funmi Olopade, MD, Professor of Medicine, Suzanne Conzen, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Maria Tretiakova, MD, Technical Director of LCM Facility at the University's Department of Pathology and Thomas Krausz, MD Professor and Director of Anatomic and Surgical Pathology. Recent additions to the Center's faculty include Alice Furumoto-Dawson Ph.D. and Bertha Delgado Ph.D., Research Associate in the Department of Pathology.