Department of Internal Medicine, UC Davis School of Medicine, Sacramento, CA, USA.
Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
J Natl Cancer Inst. 2022 Jun 13;114(6):792-799. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djac055.
On July 29, 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration's Oncology Center of Excellence convened Conversations on Cancer. This Conversation, the first ever by the US Food and Drug Administration, focused on Asian Americans and served as the platform for this Commentary. Panelists elaborated on topics ranging from heterogeneity in Asian American demographics to racism through a path to health equity and supplemented this Commentary with literature citations. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing US race group, yet data aggregation obscures distinctions and cancer disparities within the more than 24 million Asians living in the United States with harmful impacts on communities and patients, as illustrated by breast cancer survivor Susan Shinagawa's patient-to-advocate journey. Bigotry against Asian Americans has been pervasive since the 19th century, but especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Asian Americans are unique as the first US population to experience cancer as the leading cause of death. Asian Americans are disproportionately affected by cancers because of infectious origins and have the highest rates of lung cancer among never-smoking women. The infinitesimal proportion of the National Institutes of Health's budget compared with experiencing the highest percentage increases of any US racial population more than 3 decades highlights the dearth of focused research among Asian Americans. Recognizing the heterogeneity of Asian Americans and that disaggregated data are critical for accurately characterizing distinct ethnic groups, focusing on the impact of racism and COVID-19 on cancer disparities, and focusing and prioritizing funding resources are necessary steps forward for achieving health equity for Asian Americans.
2021 年 7 月 29 日，美国食品和药物管理局肿瘤卓越中心召开了癌症对话会议。这是美国食品和药物管理局首次召开此类会议，重点关注亚裔美国人，并以此为平台发表本评论。小组成员详细阐述了从亚裔美国人人口统计数据的异质性到种族主义的话题，通过实现健康公平的途径，并引用文献为本文补充内容。亚裔美国人是美国增长最快的种族群体，但数据汇总掩盖了生活在美国的 2400 多万亚洲人内部的差异和癌症差距，对社区和患者造成了有害影响，乳腺癌幸存者 Susan Shinagawa 从患者到倡导者的经历就是一个例证。自 19 世纪以来，针对亚裔美国人的偏见一直很普遍，但在 COVID-19 大流行期间尤为严重。亚裔美国人是第一个经历癌症成为主要死因的美国人群体，因此具有独特性。由于感染源，亚裔美国人更容易患上癌症，并且从不吸烟的女性中肺癌发病率最高。美国国立卫生研究院预算的比例极小，而经历的增长比例却是任何美国种族群体中最高的，超过 30 年，这突显了针对亚裔美国人的研究严重不足。认识到亚裔美国人的异质性以及分类数据对于准确描述不同族裔群体的重要性，关注种族主义和 COVID-19 对癌症差距的影响，并集中和优先考虑资金资源，这些都是为亚裔美国人实现健康公平而迈出的必要步骤。
