Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33136, USA.
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2010 Feb;19(2):366-70. doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-09-1180.
Historically, all black persons, regardless of ancestry or country of origin, have been categorized as one group for cancer research and control efforts. This practice likely masks variability in exposure to determinants of disease, as well as in risk of cancer incidence and mortality. The current study examines potential differences in knowledge of human papilloma virus (HPV) between Haitian women living in Little Haiti, Miami, Florida, and a national sample of predominately African American women.
Data for Haitian women were collected in 2007 as part of an ongoing community-based participatory research initiative in Little Haiti. For purposes of comparison, we used data from a largely African American subsample of the 2007 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). These data sources used identical items to assess HPV knowledge, providing a unique opportunity to examine how this outcome may vary between two very distinct populations who are often grouped together for research and disease surveillance.
Relative to the HINTS sample, Haitian women were far less likely to have heard about HPV.
Study data highlight important differences in Haitian and African American women's knowledge of HPV, a known determinant of cervical cancer risk. Such findings suggest that continuing to classify persons of similar phenotype but different cultural backgrounds and lifetime exposures as one group may preclude opportunity to understand, as well as attenuate, health disparity.
从历史上看，所有黑人，无论其祖籍或原籍国如何，都被归为一组进行癌症研究和控制工作。这种做法可能掩盖了疾病决定因素暴露方面的差异，以及癌症发病率和死亡率的风险差异。本研究检查了生活在佛罗里达州迈阿密小海地的海地妇女与主要是非裔美国人的全国样本之间对人乳头瘤病毒 (HPV) 的认识方面是否存在潜在差异。
海地妇女的数据是 2007 年作为小海地正在进行的基于社区的参与式研究计划的一部分收集的。为了进行比较，我们使用了 2007 年健康信息国家趋势调查 (HINTS) 中主要是非裔美国人的一个子样本的数据。这些数据源使用相同的项目来评估 HPV 知识，这为研究两个经常因研究和疾病监测而被归为一组的非常不同的人群的结果如何变化提供了独特的机会。
与 HINTS 样本相比，海地妇女听说过 HPV 的可能性要小得多。
研究数据突出了海地和非裔美国妇女对 HPV 的认识存在重要差异，HPV 是宫颈癌风险的已知决定因素。这些发现表明，继续将具有相似表型但具有不同文化背景和终身暴露的人群归为一组，可能会妨碍对健康差异的理解，并减轻健康差异。
