Cancer is the leading cause of death for Asian Americans, with some types of the disease hitting certain ethnicities harder than others.
U.S. leading causes of death
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In 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the five top causes of death among all ethnicities in the U.S. as:
- Heart disease
- Cancer
- Accidents (unintentional)
- COVID-19
- Stroke
But the how’s and why’s are not well understood because Asian Americans are severely underrepresented in medical research. That means they may be missing out on life-saving intervention programs.
Now the first national long-term study about cancer among Asian Americans has been launched to investigate health disparities among ethnic groups and uncover risk factors.
“For example, Vietnamese have historically had higher rates of cervical cancer,” said Sora Tanjasiri, a public health professor at UC Irvine. “Koreans have higher rates of liver cancer and stomach cancer. You have to look at the nuances.”
Tanjasiri, who oversees community engagement at UC Irvine’s cancer center, is part of a national effort that was recently awarded nearly $12.5 million from the National Cancer Institute.
How it will work
The plan is to start the process of recruiting 20,000 enrollees this year, with the aim of expanding the number to 50,000.
Scarlett Lin Gomez, one of three principal investigators at UC San Francisco, says a key goal is to equip Asian American communities with the cancer data to advocate for change.
“For…
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