However, Asian American women remain more likely to die of cancer than of any other cause. And, while they are less likely than women in any other major ethnic group to develop breast cancer, their breast cancer rate is the nation's fastest-growing.
The findings come from a new analysis by the Cancer Surveillance Section of the California Department of Health Services. California has the largest Asian population in the nation at 3.7 million people, or 35 percent of the entire Asian population in the United States. The new study examined cancer incidence and mortality from 1988 through 2001, the latest year for which statistics are available.
"We're encouraged by these data, but we hope that this report will serve as a clarion to urge Asian American women, who are the least likely to seek cancer screening such as mammograms, to look out for their health," said Moon S. Chen, Jr., professor of public health sciences at UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center. Chen is principal investigator for AANCART, an $8.5 million project to reduce cancer in Asian Americans nationwide.
While cancer incidence and mortality fell for Asian Americans as a whole, the good news wasn't shared equally across Asian American communities. Korean Americans saw only a 0.2 percent drop in their cancer incidence during the study period, the lowest for any of the five Asian subgroups studied -- Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. And
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Contact: Claudia Morain
claudia.morain@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
916-734-9023
University of California, Davis - Health System
22-Oct-2004