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I am pleased and excited to present the following report to you on the state of breast cancer in Chicago. The epidemiology of this disease describes an epidemic. This report begins to address the background, the implications and the steps that will allow us to do better as we battle against it. The researchers in the Sinai Urban Health Institute and their colleagues who have written the papers that follow present several important findings. Notably, far too many women are dying of breast cancer, some for lack of effective treatment and some because of inadequate quality along with less than optimal frequency of mammography. It is not only that the situation is critical and needs to be improved but it is also that the racial disparities in breast cancer mortality are unacceptable and must be eliminated. So we must improve both screening and treatment. Both must be available and both must be as effective as we can possibly make them. In some cases, women cannot afford mammography. In other cases, different programs provide free mammography to those who cannot afford it but then there are no programs to provide the needed treatment if cancer is diagnosed. In still other cases, the quality of the mammogram may be inadequate. Fortunately, this latter situation can be rather well-understood due to benchmark indicators of quality established by the America