MILWUAKEE, WI (Spectrum News) — Milwaukee native Hailee Revels calls her mom her best friend.

“She was a beautiful spirit, very bubbly, outgoing the life of the party, she was just a joy to be around, if you were in a room she was always the smile,” she said.

Revels mother, Teri, passed away from cancer in 2013, when Hailee was 17 and still in high school.

“To watch someone that you love go through one of the hardest fights of their lives is really hard, it was a lot of tears,” Revels said.

Hailee helped take care of her mom through high school. The situation forced her to change schools, sometimes take classes online, and for some long stretches of time simply pick up classwork at the end of the day when she had time.

“I also in a way kind of lost interest in school, I was very down,” Revels said.

It was a tough situation for Revels and her family, but it's also a situation African American people in Milwaukee go through at a much higher rate according to research from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Lauren Matthews, a research program coordinator with the Medical College of Wisconsin, said that 22 percent of cancer cases in Wisconsin are in African American people, that's compared to less than seven percent of the population in the state.

“In general if you break down specific cancers especially the four major — lung, breast, prostate, colorectal — African Americans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with those diseases, and also twice as likely to die from those diseases,” Matthews said.

Matthews' research shows that cancer diagnosis rates for white Milwaukee residents is 484.7 per 100,000. For black Milwaukee residents it's 564.0 per 100,000 residents. The zip codes of 53216, 53208, 53205, 53206, 53210, 53213 had higher cancer rates.

Part of her research has been talking to people in predominantly African American and Hispanic communities in the city.

Several people Matthew's has talked to in those neighborhoods didn't know when recommended cancer screens are or even what types of tests they need to take.

“It's a national issue but it's heightened here because of the level of segregation,” Matthews said.

Her research shows that resources and outreach aren’t spread out in Milwaukee.

“There's a clear disinvestment where you see an overload of resources for others, that impacts health, lack of education, food deserts,” Matthews said.

Part of Matthews' job is to look at ways to get better education, screening information and other resources to those communities.

“Maybe we can work together to make sure, okay this is a predominantly African American community, but just because of the color of their skin it shouldn't affect the type of access they have to quality care,” Matthews said.

The Greater Milwaukee Foundation has invested $435,000 over the past few years to three cancer research projects at the Wisconsin Medical College that are looking in to these disparities.

“We've focused primarily on medical research the last couple of years as we've focused more intentionally around racial equity and inclusion,” said Janel Hines, Sr. director of grant programs and strategic initiatives with the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.

Hines said the foundation attempts to fund projects that can address disparities and barriers in region. “This is cutting edge, this is changing people's lives we want to have people have long prosperous lives in our region, and this health disparities, we need to address them, the sooner the better,” Hines said.

The foundation hopes that funding research and projects like this will help with policy changes and education to the region.

“I hope that we see a change, I hope we look back at some of the zip codes that we're focusing on and see a decrease,” Hines said.

Raising awareness of the issue is also something on Revels mind.

She started Terri's brigade in September for children who's parents have cancer. They meet periodically as a support group for those children. Revels said she didn't feel like there was a support system out there for people going through what she went through in high school

“For the families and the kids there needs to be more resources out for them,” Revels said. “Because it's hard, cancer is hard.”