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(UPI) The number of U.S. adults getting cancer screening tests is not meeting targets, especially among Asian and Hispanic Americans, federal health officials found.

A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, found in 2010, breast cancer screening rates were 72.4 percent, below the Healthy People 2020target of 81 percent; cervical cancer screening was 83 percent, below the target of 93 percent; and colorectal cancer screening was 58.6 percent, below the target of 70.5 percent.

Screening rates for all three cancers were significantly lower among Asians — 64.1 percent for breast cancer, 75.4 percent for cervical cancer and 46.9 percent for colorectal cancer — compared to other groups, the study found.

Hispanics were less likely to be screened for cervical cancer (78.7 percent) and colorectal cancer (46.5 percent, when compared with non-Hispanics at 83.8 percent and 59.9 percent, respectively, the report said.

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(Boston Herald) African-American senior citizens are significantly less likely than whites to be diagnosed and treated for depression, a Rutgers University study concluded.

Researchers reviewed five years of national data from the U.S. Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, looking at the financial, insurance and health-care use information of 33,708 beneficiaries from 2001 to 2005.

The Rutgers study, to appear in the February edition of the American Journal of Public Health, found that depression diagnosis rates were 6.4 percent for non-Hispanic whites and 4.2 percent for African-Americans.

Researchers believe that many African-Americans are depressed but aren’t getting the diagnosis or help they need, said Ayse Akincigil, lead researcher and an assistant professor at Rutgers School of Social Work.

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(MedicalXpress.com) A new study finds that while colorectal cancer mortality rates dropped in the most recent two decades for every stage in both African Americans and whites, the decreases were smaller for African Americans, particularly for distant stage disease. The authors say concerted efforts to prevent or detect colorectal cancer at earlier stages in blacks could improve worsening black-white disparities.

Before 1980, colorectal cancer mortality rates for African Americans were lower than those for whites. Since then, however, the pattern of CRC mortality rates has reversed and diverged, so that in 2007, the rate for African Americans was 44 percent higher than for whites. This worsening disparity in mortality rates coincided with the introduction and dissemination of screening and improved treatment for colorectal cancer.

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(Los Angeles Times) Hispanic women may be at higher risk of dying from breast cancer compared with white women, a study finds.

The study ws presented this week at the Cancer Therapy & Research Center-American Assn. for Cancer Research San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Researchers looked at survival rates among 577 Hispanic and white women with invasive breast cancer who were part of the New Mexico Women's Health Study. They discovered that Hispanic women had about a 20% higher risk of dying from breast cancer compared with white women.

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(MedicalXpress.com) While all obese women are less satisfied with the weight-related quality of their lives than women of 'normal' weight, black women report a higher quality of life than white women of the same weight. In addition, black women appear to be more concerned about the physical limitations resulting from their obesity, than by the potential psychological consequences of being overweight or obese. These findings by Dr. Tiffany L. Cox, and her team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Neuropsychiatric Research Institute in Fargo, ND, and Obesity and Quality of Life Consulting in Durham, NC, are published online in Springer's journal Applied Research in Quality of Life.

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(Colorlines.com) Loop21.com, an African American news and lifestyle site, devoted lots of energy and real estate to HIV/AIDS last week. In the run-up and on World AIDS Day, the site ran a three-part series about the disease’s effect on ball culture (“Underground Gay Dance Culture Keeps ‘Voguing’ Legacy Alive”); covered Obama’s remarks at a ONE Campaign event (“President Obama Talks ‘The Beginning of the End of AIDS’”); and debunked down-low mythology in a statistics-laden piece about HIV risk among young black men who have sex with men (“Young Gay Black Men Are Most at Risk for HIV Transmission”).

But two pieces, which appeared side by side on World AIDS Day, crystallized the challenges of talking about sex, responsibility and HIV, 30 years and millions of words into the epidemic.

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(Medicalxpress.com) Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have determined key differences between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in the Asian American population. This study, published today in PLoS ONE, identified ways to differentiate the types of diabetes, which can be clinically similar in young Asian Americans.

During a pilot study of 30 healthy-weight diabetic and non-diabetic Asian Americans, the researchers proved that insulin resistance was consistently higher in those with type 2 diabetes, despite their normal body mass index (BMI).

Diabetes in Asian and Asian American populations is rising. China currently has the largest population of diabetics in the world, at 92 million, followed by India (50 million), compared to the United States' 27 million. This study has identified reliable diagnostic tools for identifying type 2 diabetes, making correct diagnoses quicker. It has also identified critical physical differences in Asian patients with diabetes that should be considered in making recommendations for proper treatment.

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(AlterNet) Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske held a media briefing Wednesday to discuss the disproportionate impact our nation's "drug problem" has on African-American communities.

It is simply Orwellian for the drug czar to focus on the disproportionate impact of our nation's drug problem on African-American communities without acknowledging the disproportionate racial impact of drug law enforcement. According to the federal government's own yearly research surveys, African Americans use and sell drugs at similar rates at whites — yet African Americans are arrested for drugs at 13 times the rate of whites.

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(Medicalxpress) A new analysis of teenage drug abuse finds widespread problems among whites, Native Americans, Hispanics and youngsters of multiple races, with less severe abuse among Asian and African-American teens.

Among kids who abuse drugs, marijuana is most heavily used, followed by stimulants and then alcohol. Prescription opioids such as oxycodone have surpassed inhalants as a source for getting high.

The findings, reported Monday by scientists at Duke University and elsewhere, are published in the November issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

"I think it will be surprising to some people what the numbers show," said Dan C. Blazer, M.D., PhD, in Duke's Department of Psychiatry and senior author on the study. "There's a significant burden of these disorders, and it's important to recognize that among teens using these substances, there's between a 10 percent and 26 percent chance of having a substance use disorder."

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(Washington Informer) Prostate cancer continues to remain the leading cause of cancer in men in the United States. Over 30 thousand men are estimated to die of prostate cancer this year alone. Also, for reasons that are not completely understood, African-American men are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer and 2.5 times likely to die of the disease. The PSA test is a blood test that measures prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a protein produced by the prostate gland. An increase in the PSA level is often the only sign of early prostate cancer. The PSA test is also valuable in following patients after treatment.

A recent report published in The Annals of Internal Medicine by a U.S. Preventative Services Task Force Committee stated that PSA testing should no longer be performed routinely on men in the United States. The task force came to this decision based on studies performed in the United States and Europe suggesting that prostate cancer screening does not appear to improve survival in patients with this disease.

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