Excess lung-cancer—mortality rates among mexican women in California

✍ Scribed by Robert Buechley; John E. Dunn Jr.; George Linden; Lester Breslow

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1957
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 328 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-0142(195701/02)10:1<63::aid-cncr2820100108>3.0.co;2-n

✦ Synopsis

EXICAN-BORN women in Calilornia show M a threefold excess of lung-cancer deaths compared with other women in the state. Based upon lung-cancer deaths for the five years 1949 to 1953, the present study indicates that these women have an excessive death ratc from lung cancer a t all ages more than 45. It was initiated after Steiner's report of an excess of lung cancer among Mexican women in an autopsy series from the Los Angeles County General Hospital, 1918 to 1947.

,ACCURACY OF CLASSIFICATIONS

Cause of Death. Throughout the period of study, coding of this cau5e of death has been according to the sixth revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Injuries, arid Causes of Death. We have called "lung cancer" those d e a t h coded "1 62" and "163" in this classification.

Nationality Group. Steiner noted that, as used by him, "the term 'Mexican' has no exact anthropological, ethnological, nationalistic, or citizenship significance." The United States Censub Rureau has had some difficulty in settling on a satisfactory definition of "Mexican." In 1930 they counted "Mexicans" as a race. The "race" classification not being acceptable, in 1940 "persons of Spanish mother tongue" were counted, In 1950 "persons oL Spanish surname" were defined and enumerated. T h e census procedures arc not completely based on surname; they also use place of birth, rejecting those of Spanish stirname who were born, or whose parents were born, in nonSpanish countries other than the United States. In California, such persons are largely of Portuguese origin, coming from Portugal or the Azores.