[Mar 23, 2007]

      Dozens of health professionals and researchers will meet on Friday at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago to examine causes and determine solutions to why black women are more likely than white women to die from breast cancer, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The meeting stems from a recent study by Mount Sinai Hospital's Urban Health Institute that found the breast cancer mortality rate among black women in Chicago in 2003 was 68% higher than among white women. Nationally, breast cancer mortality is 37% higher among black women than white women. The summit will focus on three possible causes behind the disparity:

• Barriers to treatment, such as lack of health insurance, transportation or trust in the health care system;
  
  
• Quality of mammograms; and
  
  
• Access to mammograms.
  

The group plans to form a task force, which will issue a report from the meeting and release recommendations by early September (Ritter, Chicago Sun-Times, 3/23).