BWHS Breast Cancer Risk Calculator

This BWHS (Black Women’s Health Study) Breast Cancer Risk Calculator allows health professionals to estimate a woman’s risk of developing invasive breast cancer over the next 5 years. It was derived and tested solely in data from U.S. Black women. The tool uses a woman’s personal medical and reproductive history and the history of breast cancer and prostate cancer among her first-degree relatives (parents, siblings, children) to estimate absolute breast cancer risk—her chance or probability of developing breast cancer in a given period of time.

Although a woman’s risk may be accurately estimated, these predictions do not allow one to say precisely which woman will develop breast cancer. In fact, some women who do not develop breast cancer have higher risk estimates than some women who do develop breast cancer.