The University of Chicago Center for Interdisciplinary Health Disparities Research (CIHDR) is 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 than 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 than 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 CIHDR and the College of Medicine - University of Ibaban, recently sponsored a international conference in Lagos, Nigeria, to study trends in the management of breast and cervical cancers.