Ethnicity, immigration and cancer screening

Download or read book Ethnicity, immigration and cancer screening written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Health authorities need to tailor their message about the importance of these forms of cancer screening to reflect the perceptions and beliefs of particular minority groups if the objective of universal use of preventative cancer screening is to be achieved. [...] An understanding of the factors that determine the use of cancer screening is necessary for the design of effective public health policies to increase awareness of both the availability and the importance of cancer screening, particularly for groups that might otherwise face barriers to the use of these preventative services. [...] The model states that participation in health screening is a function of an individual's perceptions of 2 This is also true of other ethnic minority groups, in particular the grouping together of Black immigrants from both the Caribbean and Africa. [...] Explanations for the lower incidence of cancer screening among immigrants include a lack of understanding about preventative health services (Luke, 1996), differences in beliefs about the necessity of preventative cancer screening (Juon et.al., 2003), differences in beliefs about the availability of screening services and in referrals from physicians (Raja- Jones, 1999), and cultural/communication [...] We estimate the determinants of cancer screening across a pooled sample of immigrant and native-born women and include specific controls for immigrant status, years in Canada, and year of arrival, which in the presence of common controls for socio-economic and demographic characteristics will reflect differences in cancer screening relative to comparable native-born women.