• Bruce N Leistikow, Moon Chen, and Alexander Tsodikov.
• Department of Public Health Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA 95616-8638, USA. BNLeistikow@ucdavis.edu
• Prev Med. 2006 Jun 1; 42 (6): 430434430-4.

BackgroundAsians 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.MethodsDeath 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.ResultsThe 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.DiscussionMany 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.

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