Tobacco smoke overload and ethnic, state, gender, and temporal cancer mortality disparities in Asian-Americans and Pacific Islander-Americans

• Published in: Preventive medicine Vol. 42; no. 6; pp. 430 - 434
• Main Authors: Leistikow, Bruce N., Chen, Moon, Tsodikov, Alexander
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.06.2006
• Subjects: Asian Americans; California; Ethnicity; Female; Gender; Hawaii; Humans; Illinois; Linear Models; Lung Neoplasms - ethnology; Lung Neoplasms - mortality; Male; Neoplasms - ethnology; Neoplasms - mortality; New Jersey; New York; Oceanic Ancestry Group; SEER Program; Sex characteristics; Sex Factors; Smoking; Smoking - adverse effects; Smoking - ethnology; State governments; Time Factors; United States - epidemiology; United States; New York; Ethnicity; Illinois; Hawaii; California; Gender; Asian-Americans; Time factors; Sex characteristics; State governments; New Jersey; Smoking
• ISSN: 0091-7435; 1096-0260
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2005.12.015

Asians and Pacific Islanders (APIs) are important populations nationally and globally. So we assessed cumulative tobacco smoke overexposure (smoke overload)/cancer mortality associations across states, ethnicities, years, and genders among API-Americans. Death rates were adjusted to the 2000 United States age standard, lung cancer death rates used as a smoke overload bio-index, and lung/non-lung cancer death rate linear regressions run. Cancer death rate smoking-attributable fractions (SAFs) are equal to 1 − estimated unexposed rate/observed rate. The two lowest smoke overload and non-lung cancer death rates were in South Asian (Indo)-Californian females and males. The highest were in Korean-Californian males. Non-lung cancer death rates were tightly and steeply associated with smoke overload across ethnicity, state, year, or gender. Cancer death rate smoking-attributable fractions ranged from 0 in female and 6% in male Indo-Californians, to 39% in female and 57% in male API-Americans in 2002, to 71% in Korean-Californian and 69% in API Hawaiian males. Many API American cancer death rate disparities across genders, ethnicities, states, or years can be explained by smoke overload disparities. Tobacco control may greatly reduce cancer death rates and disparities among API-Americans and, likely, others.