image: Dr. Shelley White-Means
Credit: The University of Tennessee Health Science Center
Memphis, Tenn. (February 26, 2024) – Shelley White-Means, PhD, a professor of Health Economics in the Department of Interprofessional Education and the director of the Consortium for Health Education, Economic Empowerment and Research (CHEER) at UT Health Science Center, recently received a $1.5 million, four-year grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to explore the root causes of the disparity in breast cancer survival of Black women compared to white women.
Dr. White-Means and a team will look beyond the social determinants of health to explore what she terms “the intersectionality of race, residential segregation, and poverty as a driver of health disparities in breast cancer.” The goal is to identify effective public policy interventions and strategies to change the picture for Black women diagnosed with breast cancer.
The team includes Sam Li, PhD, assistant professor, Clinical Pharmacy and Translational Science, and Arash Shaban-Nejad, PhD, MPH, associate professor of Pediatrics, both from UT Health Science Center. Also on the team are University of Memphis faculty, Jill Dapremont, professor and division director of Family, Community, Health System Science; Daphene McFerrin, executive director of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change; and Elana Delavega, PhD, MSW, professor in the School of Social Work.
Using unique quantitative and qualitative methods the team will identify modifiable pathways to breast health, such as disadvantaged racially segregated neighborhoods, that are the “root causes” of social determinants of health.
“We’re adding a different look. We say that limited social determinants of health are just symptoms of disparities in breast cancer outcomes,” Dr. White-Means explained.
“We're calling the factors that we want to consider the root causes,” she continued. “What causes a neighborhood to lack social determinants of health resources? What policies and practices have created neighborhoods that have food insecurity, limited access to health care providers, and limited jobs and economic stability?”
The long-term goal is to identify interventions and policy solutions that transform disparities that are rooted in seemingly unalterable place-related community factors.
Dr. White-Means has spent her career exploring the racial disparity in outcomes for breast cancer survival. While the overall incidence of breast cancer is lower in Black women, they are 1.4 times more likely to die of breast cancer than white women.
She has looked at the perspectives of breast cancer survivors, attitudes and practices of the health care community, cultural and genetic issues, geographic location, and other factors that contribute to this disparity in breast cancer survival of Black women compared to white women in Memphis and elsewhere.
“I want to know why,” she says. “Why is it that we have this higher death rate among Black women compared to white women? What is going on in Memphis? We have a high-quality medical system, we have a high-quality cancer center, we have all this phenomenal care system. Why is it that Black women are dying more than white women?”
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