HONOLULU — The National Cancer Institute has awarded $700,000 for a study led by two University of Hawaii Cancer Center researchers to study how structural racism affects racial and ethnic inequities in lung cancer risks.


What You Need To Know

  • Structural racism is a form of racism rooted in laws, policies and social forces that perpetuate racial and ethnic health inequities

  • S. Lani Park and Iona Cheng, in collaboration with the University of Southern California and University of California, San Francisco, will examine residential segregation and other measures of structural racism to see how persistent racial and ethnic inequities in Native Hawaiian, African American, Japanese American and Latino adults contribute to different smoking behaviors and lung cancer risk

  • Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in both men and women and is the second-most common cancer overall.

  • The researchers will seek insight to a mystery presented in an earlier study by the UH Cancer Center and University of Southern California, which showed that Native Hawaiian and African American adults were at greater risk of lung cancer compared to white adults even when the groups smoked the same amount

S. Lani Park and Iona Cheng, in collaboration with the University of Southern California and University of California, San Francisco, will examine residential segregation and other measures of structural racism to see how persistent racial and ethnic inequities in Native Hawaiian, African American, Japanese American and Latino adults contribute to different smoking behaviors and lung cancer risk.

As defined by the researchers, structural racism is a form of racism rooted in laws, policies and social forces that perpetuate racial and ethnic health inequities.

“Understanding how inequitable laws and policies contribute to smoking behaviors and lung cancer risk may help to make great strides toward reducing the racial and ethnic disparities of lung cancer,” said Park.  

The researchers note that connections between structural racism and lung cancer risk has not been extensively studied.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in both men and women and is the second-most common cancer overall.

The researchers will seek insight to a mystery presented in an earlier study by the UH Cancer Center and University of Southern California, which showed that Native Hawaiian and African American adults were at greater risk of lung cancer compared to white adults even when the groups smoked the same amount. The Multiethnic Cohort Study also found that Japanese American and Latino adults were found to have a lower risk of developing lung cancer.

Park, Cheng and their fellow researchers will try to identify specific measures of structural racism that impact smoking and lung cancer risk across different racial and ethnic groups, so interventions and social or policy changed can be developed to lower the risk.

Michael Tsai covers local and state politics for Spectrum News Hawaii.