Introduction
This paper is written from the perspective of a breast cancer survivor-advocate. While the writer is trained as a public health professional and is a fifteen-year survivor of breast cancer, she writes this paper from her experience working with and supporting many hundreds of women who have had an initial diagnosis of breast cancer or a reoccurrence of the disease. It is this experience that motivates the writer's interest in and influences much of her thinking about the important role of breast cancer research in the reduction of excess burden and the eradication of the disease.
The focus of this paper is the reduction of excess incidence and mortality due to breast cancer among subpopulations of women in California. Variables given the most attention are race/ethnicity and SES. Especially useful to writing this paper was having access to eleven manuscripts in publication, provided as a confidential resource by the California Breast Cancer Research Program.
Ngina Lythcott, DrPH
