{"id":3928,"date":"2009-04-11T04:04:39","date_gmt":"2009-04-11T04:04:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-04-12T05:04:40","modified_gmt":"2009-04-12T05:04:40","slug":"Asians-suffer-high-rates-of-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=3928","title":{"rendered":"Asians suffer high rates of cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

We need to take better care of ourselves! That includes less stress!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Asians in the state (Asian American State)<\/strong> are dying from cancer at a rate higher than any other ethnicity, and one-third of all Korean Americans don’t have health insurance, according to data released Thursday.<\/p>\n

The first-ever report from the California Asian Pacific Islander Joint Legislative Caucus compiled data from 25 ethnic groups.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The State of Asian American<\/strong>, Native Hawaiian Health in California Report showed that despite their reputation as a healthy, successful minority group, Asians in the United States have serious health problems.<\/p>\n

"We’re exploding a lot of myths," said Assemblyman Mike Eng, D-El Monte, who led the effort to create the report.<\/p>\n

Although Asians<\/strong> have a reputation for easily assimilating and healthy living, it is a perception that is not accurate, Eng said.<\/p>\n

He hopes the report will "bury the myth of the Asian American as the ‘model minority,’"<\/strong> he said.<\/p>\n

Eng worked as an emergency room technician as a young man in his home state of Hawaii. He said that every day he saw people with preventable diseases knocking at death’s door.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This year, he kicked off an effort to accurately document the health problems plaguing Filipinos, Samoans, Chinese, Koreans, Thai and other Asians.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Too often, Eng said, Asians and Pacific Islanders are bunched together as one ethnic group.<\/p>\n

But each of the ethnicities is plagued by different problems.<\/p>\n

In total, more than 27 percent of Asians die of cancer<\/strong>, the study found. In comparison, cancer claims about 23 percent of whites, 22 percent of blacks and 20 percent of Latinos.
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\nKoreans, Vietnamese and Chinese specifically suffer high rates of liver cancer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

About 32 percent of Hmong live under the poverty line, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Thirty-three percent of Koreans don’t have health insurance.<\/p>\n

Filipinos, Tongans and Samoans<\/strong> have a high rate of obesity. And, although more data need to be collected, it seems Cambodians suffer from a high rate of post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n

The research on Asian\/ Pacific Islander health is so sparse that much of the data sets were too small to be statistically significant, Eng said.<\/p>\n

He hopes to use the data to spur more research.<\/p>\n

The next step is to find out why each group has its problems, he said.<\/p>\n

"Let’s prioritize," he said. "We’re not going to cure everybody. I just want to start with this and keep building."<\/p>\n

Percent of deaths caused by cancer:<\/p>\n