Abstract
This chapter provides a description of cancer in the Arab American community. It first presents estimates of the cancer incidence and mortality in the Arab world and identifies the top five cancers in Arab men as lung, bladder, prostate, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and liver and in Arab women as breast, colorectal, cervix, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and ovary. In contrast, the top five cancers in US men and women are, respectively, prostate, lung, colorectal, bladder and skin melanoma, and breast, lung, colorectal, uterus, and thyroid. Cancer incidence in Arab Americans has been estimated because unlike Hispanics and Asians, Arab ethnicity is not specifically identified in the US Census and other data sources, nor is nativity status routinely available. Based on these estimates, the incidence of liver and stomach cancers in Arab Americans are higher and lung cancer is lower than that of Non-Hispanic Whites in the United States. However, without knowledge of nativity status, the US estimates cannot determine what differences are due to migration to a new environment and which are genetic. Finally, the available information on cancer control and prevention among Arab Americans is summarized. In general, smoking patterns are unclear, obesity seems to be prevalent, especially among women, and cancer screening services are not fully utilized. Additional study is critically needed to improve our understanding of the cancer burden among Arab Americans.
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Notes
- 1.
Various methodologies were used to obtain these estimates. Only nine countries (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Lebanon, Gaza Strip and West Bank, Bahrain) have national cancer registries. Statistics for these countries are based on the most recent years of rates applied to the 2008 population. For three countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria) multiple local data were used to estimate the national rate. For two countries (Morocco, Libya) statistics for one cancer registry covering parts of the country were accepted as the country estimate. For three countries (Yemen, Sudan, Iraq) national estimates were based on overall statistics partitioned by sex and age based on information from some local registries. For the other five (Somali, Mauritania, Djibouti, Comoros, Syrian Arab Republic) national estimates were based on rates from neighboring countries. Cancer mortality data are available only for three countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Gaza Strip and West Bank). For the remaining countries, mortality is estimated based on incidence data.
- 2.
Age-Standardization is a statistical method to make rates in different populations comparable. International comparisons use the World Standard Population for comparisons (Bray F. Age-standardization. In: Parkin DM, Whelan SL, Ferlay J, et al. Cancer incidence in five continents. Vol VIII. Lyon, France: International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2002. (IARC Scientific Publications No. 155.)).
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Schwartz, K., Nasseri, K., Shehada, E. (2014). Cancer: Cross-Roads of Ethnicity and Environment. In: Nassar-McMillan, S., Ajrouch, K., Hakim-Larson, J. (eds) Biopsychosocial Perspectives on Arab Americans. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8238-3_16
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