Abramson Cancer Center

Research Programs

Community Based Research and Cancer Disparities Program

Program Leader(s): Chanita Hughes-Halbert, PhD

Led by Chanita Hughes-Halbert, PhD, Associate Professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Psychiatry; "With Our Voices" is a research program for African American women who have a personal and/or family history of breast or ovarian cancer that is suggestive of hereditary disease.

Through this program, participants have an opportunity to meet with a genetic counselor to discuss their family history of cancer; how cancer may be transmitted within families; and recommendations for screening and prevention.

This process is called cancer risk assessment or genetic counseling.

Although recommendations have been made to increase the cultural sensitivity of breast cancer risk counseling programs, data on cultural values and beliefs have not yet been translated into educational genetic counseling programs.

The With Our Voices project is designed to:

• Increase our ability to provide African-American women with culturally sensitive genetic risk assessment by integrating cultural health beliefs and values into the education and counseling process.
• Increase our knowledge about the influence of these values and beliefs on decisions about genetic testing, quality of life, and breast cancer prevention and control practices among African American women.

Working with Dr Hughes-Halbert in the program is Susan M. Domchek, MD, a medical oncologist and Director of the Abramson Cancer Center’s Cancer Risk Evaluation Program for Breast and Ovarian Cancer. All women, regardless of racial or ethnic background, who have a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation are at increased risk for developing breast and/or ovarian cancer. If you are at risk, you can discuss surveillance and preventive options to reduce the chances of developing breast and/or ovarian cancer.

To obtain more information about participating in the With Our Voices Program, women should contact Aliya Collier at 215-746-7168. To donate to the With Our Voices Program, click here.

Thanks to Patti Labelle's participation in NBC's Clash of the Choirs, With Our Voices will receive a donation of $50,000. The money was kicked in by NBC parent GE, which announced at the last minute that it was donating that amount in the names of each of the losing teams, including those led by Houston's Kelly Rowland, New Haven's Michael Bolton and Oklahoma City's Blake Shelton.