Beginning this weekend, women in the Teaneck, Bergenfield, Englewood, Fair Lawn and Passaic-Clifton communities can now participate in vital research about Orthodox Jewish women’s knowledge and attitudes about breast cancer risk and prevention.

Just last month, women in Riverdale and Edison/Highland Park began responding to a women’s health survey being conducted by a frum research organization, the Institute for Applied Research and Community Collaboration (ARCC), in partnership with researchers from Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). Now that research is being expanded to include women from northern New Jersey.

The online survey will be distributed, starting Friday, via multiple channels including shul and community listservs in northern New Jersey.

The survey asks women about their knowledge, attitudes and considerations in deciding whether to go for BRCA (breast cancer) genetic testing. Participation is sought from all Orthodox Jewish women ages 25 and over, regardless of their familiarity or experience with BRCA gene testing or breast cancer. Survey participants will also be offered a chance to win one of ten $100 Amazon gift cards.

Many women feel ill-equipped to make an informed decision about whether getting tested for the BRCA gene is the right choice for them. Findings from the study will be used to develop educational materials—both in print and online—which Jewish women can access to help inform their decision about whether or not to be tested.

“We want to alert the community to this study, so that when they receive an email about it through their shul listserv or other channels, they’ll understand what it’s all about and take the time to participate. The more women who participate in the survey, the more reliable and meaningful the study’s findings become. We really want to capture responses from a wide range of the Orthodox community, and are doing our best to have a fully representative group,” says Dr. Yitzchak Schechter, director and founder of ARCC.

The survey, being rolled out in stages, is part of an ongoing, multifaceted research project begun in 2014 and being conducted by ARCC and CUMC. The study comes on the heels of a similar smaller study that ARCC and Columbia fielded in winter 2015. That study found that even among Orthodox women with college and graduate-level education, less than half had adequate genetic testing knowledge or accurate breast cancer risk perceptions.

“Women carrying a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation have elevated lifetime risks of getting breast and ovarian cancer of 35-84 percent and 10-50 percent respectively. While women in the general population have a 1 in 400 chance of carrying the BRCA gene, Ashkenazi Jewish women have a 1 in 40 chance, so understandably, this is an issue of critical interest to the Jewish community,” says Dr. Katherine Crew, director of the Clinical Breast Cancer Prevention Program at CUMC.

“Breast cancer takes a substantial toll on the Jewish community at large, and the Orthodox Jewish community is not immune to that,” notes Schechter. “But we have found in our earlier studies that Orthodox women struggle with some unique challenges and cultural considerations when it comes to risk prevention.”

Those “unique challenges” include socio-religious factors such as the role of halachic considerations and rabbinic counsel in shaping women’s testing decisions, as well as concerns about stigma as it may affect women’s shidduch prospects. The study includes questions that explore how these considerations shape Orthodox women’s testing choices, if at all.

“This study,” adds Schechter, “seeks to learn more about what those considerations are, and then to use the insight gained to develop educational materials so that Orthodox women, and those who support them, can better understand their personal risk profile, and then make educated decisions about how to respond.”

Among other tools, the findings will be used to help develop an informative, interactive digital tool for women called RealRisks, as well as a risk-navigation tool for primary care providers, both tailored to the cultural needs of Orthodox Jewish women.