Statistics on Asian and Pacific Islander Women Breast Cancer in the United States
 

High Cancer/Breast Cancer Rates

  • Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women living in theUnited States are getting breast cancer in greater numbers.[i]
  • API immigrants who have lived in the United States for 10 years or longer are 80 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than more recent immigrants.[ii]
  • Breast cancer is:
    the most common type of cancer in Chinese women.
    the second most common type in Vietnamese women, living in the United States.    [iii]
    the leading cause of death among Filipina women living in the United States.    [iv]
    One of the most common cancer in India.
  • Filipina women born in the U.S. have a 60% higher risk for breast cancer than women born in the Philippines.[v]
  • Third and fourth generations of API women have higher rates of developing breast cancer, which are similar to Caucasian women.
  • AAPI women breast cancer incidence rates[vi]
    Among Chinese American, breast cancer rate is 55.5
    (per 100,000 population)
    Among Filipino, 73.1 per 100,000
    Among Japanese, 52.3 per 100,000
    Among Korean, 25.5 per 100,000
    Among Vietnamese, 43.0 per 100,000
  • Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States. In 2002, an estimated 203,500 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and 39,600 died from the disease.
  • NCI estimates that 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime; and 1 in 5 will die from the disease.
    •

Mammography Screening Rate

  • Nearly half of all AAPI women age 40 and older have not had a mammogram in the past two years.[vii]
  • Only 48.5 percent of AAPI women aged 50 and older get regular mammograms—the lowest of any racial/ethnic group.
  • AAPI women living in the United States are less likely to have mammograms than other groups of women in the United States.[viii]
  • Women of Asian and Pacific Islander descent over age 40 get mammograms less often than other groups of women in the U.S.
  • Reasons for this may include: fear of cancer detection, fear of mammograms, lack of access to a mammogram facility, cultural and language barriers, and lack of knowledge about mammography.[ix]
    •

Regular Mammograms

  • NCI recommends that women in their 40s and older should have mammograms every 1 to 2 years.[x]
  • Regularly scheduled mammograms can decrease a woman's chance of dying from breast cancer.
  • Routine screening mammography can reduce breast cancer mortality by 20-40% for women aged 50 years and older.[xi]
  • Studies done over the past 30 years clearly show that regular screening mammography significantly reduces the death rate from breast cancer in women over the age of 50.
  • Mammography reduces mortality in women over 50 by 30 percent; and by women who begin screening in their forties by 17 percent.[xii]
  • Older women who undergo regular mammography are diagnosed with an earlier stage of disease and are less likely to die from their disease, even for women age 85 and older.[xiii]
  • There are many low- and no-cost screening programs near where you live. If you have Medicare, it covers most of the cost of your mammogram once every 12 months.
    •

General API Women Statistics

  • Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
  • 70% foreign born
  • >65% speak native language
  • 35% linguistically isolated
  • Chinese Americans
  • 76% are foreign born
  • 8% are age 65 or older
  • 27% have less than a high school degree
  • 16% live below poverty level
  • Filipino Americans
  • 73% foreign born
  • 8% are age 65 and older
  • 75% speak English well
  • Vietnamese Americans
  • 82% foreign born
  • 65% does not speak English well
     
  • 20.8% of AAPI had no health insurance in 1999, compared to 15.5% of the total U. S. population.[xiv]

[i] National Women’s Health Information Center, http://www.4woman.gov/faq/bc-apiw.htm.

[ii] Ziegler et al., (1993) Migration patterns and breast cancer risk in Asian-American women. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 85(22): 1819-1827.

[iii] Miller, B. et al. (1996) Racial/ethnic patterns of cancer in the United States, 1988-1992. Bethesda: National Cancer Institute. NIH Pub. No. 96-4104.

[iv] National Women’s Health Information Center.

[v] Ziegler et al., 1993.

[vi] From Komen Breast Cancer workshop.

[vii] National Institutes of Health 1998 Survey; Hahn, RA(1992) The state of federal health statistics on racial and ethnic groups. JAMA 267(2):268-271.

[viii] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, National Health Interview Survey.

[ix] National Asian Women Health Organization (NAWHO), Communicating Across Boundaries—A Cultural Competency Training on Breast and Cervical Cancers in Asian American Women—Training Curriculum 2001.

[xi] Mammography Screening and Rescreening, August 18, 1999; http://cis.nci.nih.gov/fact/5_28.htm.

[xii] Understanding Breast Changes; percentages from Facts about Breast Cancer and Mammograms, NCI.

[xiii] Journal of American Geriatric Society, 2000.

[xiv] U. S. Bureau of Census, 2000.

 

 
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