Correlates of Cancer Screening for Pacific Islanders in California

Data from the US National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries showed that Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) have some of the worst cause-specific survival rates in comparison to other race/ethnic groups in the US. A large contributor to this health disparity is the advance stages of cancer that is presented at time of diagnosis. These findings highlight the need to strategize ways to promote cancer prevention and early screenings for our Pacific Islander populations. In response to this need, an analysis of the correlates of cancer screening for California's Pacific Islanders was conducted using two waves of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) years 2001 and 2003.

Due to the small numbers of NHPI normally captured with random sampling techniques in health surveys, health data on these populations are often inappropriately combined into an over-encompassing umbrella category. Since California comprises the largest number of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders outside of Hawai'i and the CHIS allows the concatenation of survey waves, separate analyses of NHPI were conducted. Logistic regression models were developed to identify factors that lead to colorectal-, prostate-, Pap-, and mammogram screenings for Pacific Islanders. Analyses reveal that adult NHPI differ from the rest of Californians in a number of health-related characteristics. NHPI adults more often report being overweight or obese, being current smokers, and NHPI adult women more often report never having a mammogram and Pap smear. Implications for program and policy development will be discussed.