The study reported here examines the survival experience up to 84 months of patients from the five major racial groups in Hawaii diagnosed with colorectal cancer during the years between 1960 and 1974 based on data in the Hawaii Tumor Registry. Previous research in Hawaii showed that racial differences in survival existed even after adjusting for sex, age at diagnosis, stage of the disease at diagnosis, and normal life expectancy. In this paper, socioeconomic status differences between racial groups are hypothesized as a possible explanation for these survival differences. The results show that socioeconomic status did account for some survival differences between racial groups beyond what could be explained by the other variables. After adjusting for all the covariates, the only statistically significant racial differences which remained were higher survival rates for the Japanese patients compared with the rates for the Hawaiian and Filipino patients. Socioeconomic status was not found, however, to have a statistically significant effect on survival independent of race or the other variables examined. Reasons for the modest effects of socioeconomic status in this study are discussed.

For Asian/Pacific-Islander youths, the quality of the social supports, including family relations, may be particularly important in the adolescents' adjustment. When examining school-related outcomes, demographic variables, with particular emphases on ethnicity and culture, must be considered. When developing and implementing prevention and intervention services and programs, consideration of family and ethnic-cultural influences should be taken into account, with further research needed in several related domains: other SES influences, life stressors, migration-generational effects, ethnic identity, self-concept indicators and socio-political aspects.

The age-adjusted lung cancer incidence rates among Japanese, Chinese and Hawaiian women in Hawaii do not correlate to their respective cigarette smoking exposures. We conducted a case-control study to determine the lung cancer risk associated with smoking among these three ethnic groups of women by reviewing the medical records of 176 Japanese, 67 Chinese and 132 Hawaiian lung cancer patients diagnosed from 1968 to 1978. Smoking histories, as well as socioeconomic indexes, for these cases were compared to those of 2,404 sex- and race-matched controls from the general population. Controlling for age and socioeconomic index, we found that lung cancer risk associated with smoking was greatest for Hawaiian (O.R.=10.5), less for Japanese (O.R.=4.9) and least for Chinese women (O.R.=1.8). While smoking was associated with a significant increase in lung cancer risk for all histologies among Japanese and Hawaiian woman, the risk was much greater for epidermoid and small-cell types than for adenocarcinoma. Among Chinese women, epidermoid and small-cell lung cancer were the only histologies showing a significant association with smoking. There was some suggestion that increased lung cancer risk was associated with a higher socioeconomic index after controlling for age and smoking, at least among Japanese born in Japan and Hawaiians with adenocarcinoma. The population risk for lung cancer attributable to smoking was found to be 79% for Hawaiian women, but only 44% for Japanese and merely 11% for Chinese women. Thus, we concluded that the majority of lung cancer occurring in Japanese and particularly Chinese women in Hawaii is due to factors other than cigarette smoking.

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The purpose of this study was to examine whether school experiences, school performance, and other risk-protective factors were related to violence among Hawaiian, Filipino, and Samoan youths residing in Hawai'i. This study analyzed survey data (N = 325) collected in three high schools having concentrations of Filipino, Hawaiian, and Samoan youths, as well as a smaller number of Japanese students, which served as a comparison group. The analyses consisted of bivariate and multivariate analyses of risk protection for violence. Two-and three-way interactions were tested to examine whether there were speciÞc gender and/or ethnic effects. The Þnal model explained 29.3% of the variance in violent behavior. Five variables were signiÞcant: grade point average, pressure to choose between school and friends, favorable school attitude, feeling safe, and importance of college. Schools serving these populations should focus on fostering positive bonds between teachers and students and building bridges to families and neighborhoods. C 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.