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This study was conducted to assess the association between prior history of respiratory disease and lung cancer among Mexican Americans using data from a multi-racial/ethnic lung cancer case-control study. Cases (n = 204) were patients with previously untreated lung cancer. Healthy control participants (n = 325) were recruited from a large physician group practice. Demographics, cigarette use, and history of respiratory disease were collected. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to estimate relative risk. Prior history of COPD (OR = 2.0; 95 % CI 1.2-3.3) and pneumonia (OR = 2.2; 95 % CI 1.3-3.6) were associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. These findings illustrate that prior COPD and pneumonia are associated with an increased risk of lung cancer among Mexican Americans. To our knowledge, this is one of largest case-control analyses assessing the role of respiratory disease and lung cancer risk specifically among Mexican-Americans.

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BACKGROUND: Understanding the factors that contribute to physical activity (PA) in Mexican-origin adolescents is essential to the design of effective efforts to enhance PA participation in this population. METHODS: Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify sociodemographic and behavioral correlates of self-reported PA in school and community settings in 1154 Mexican-origin adolescents aged 12-17 years in Houston, TX. RESULTS: The majority of adolescents were born in the US (74%), approximately half (51%) were overweight or obese, and nearly three-quarters (73%) watched more than 2 hours of weekday television. Similarities and differences by setting and gender were observed in the relationships between sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics and PA. In boys, parental education and attending physical education (PE) were positively associated with PA across multiple PA outcomes. Adolescent linguistic acculturation was inversely associated with participation in community sports, whereas parental linguistic acculturation was positively associated with PA at school. In girls, PA in school and community settings was inversely associated with TV viewing and positively associated with PE participation. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight similarities and differences in correlates of PA among boys and girls, and point toward potential sources of opportunities as well as disparities for PA behaviors in Mexican-origin adolescents.

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BACKGROUND: Established psychosocial risk factors increase the risk for experimentation among Mexican origin youth. Now, we comprehensively investigate the added contribution of select polymorphisms in candidate genetic pathways associated with sensation seeking, risk taking, and smoking phenotypes to predict experimentation. METHODS: Participants (N = 1,118 Mexican origin youth) recruited from a large population-based cohort study in Houston, TX, provided prospective data on cigarette experimentation over 3 years. Psychosocial data were elicited twice-baseline and final follow-up. Participants were genotyped for 672 functional and tagging variants in the dopamine, serotonin, and opioid pathways. RESULTS: After adjusting for gender and age, with a Bayesian False Discovery Probability set at 0.8 and prior probability of 0.05, six gene variants were significantly associated with risk of experimentation. After controlling for established risk factors, multivariable analyses revealed that participants with six or more risk alleles were 2.25 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.62-3.13] times more likely to have experimented since baseline than participants with five or fewer. Among committed never-smokers (N = 872), three genes (OPRM1, SNAP25, HTR1B) were associated with experimentation as were all psychosocial factors. Among susceptible youth (N = 246), older age at baseline, living with a smoker, and three different genes (HTR2A, DRD2, SLC6A3) predicted experimentation. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings, which have implications for development of culturally specific interventions, need to be validated in other ethnic groups. IMPACT: These results suggest that variations in select genes interact with a cognitive predisposition toward smoking. In susceptible adolescents, the impact of the genetic variants appears to be larger than committed never-smokers.

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BACKGROUND: Overall, Latinas are more likely to be diagnosed with a more advanced stage of breast cancer and are 20% more likely to die of breast cancer than non-Hispanic white women. It is estimated that from 2003 to 2006, $82.0 billion in direct medical care expenditures, in addition to 100,000 lives annually, could be saved by eliminating health disparities experienced by Latinos and increasing the use of up to 5 preventive services in the United States. An additional 3700 lives could be saved if 90% of women aged ≥40 years were recently screened for breast cancer. METHODS: The authors examined the risk for breast cancer in a case-control, population-based sample of Mexican-origin women in Harris County, Texas (n=714), where the rates of breast cancer mortality for Latina women have doubled since 1990. RESULTS: Half of breast cancer cases (n=119) were diagnosed in women aged <50 years. In a multivariate model, women who had a family history of breast cancer (odds ratio [OR], 4.3), who were born in Mexico and had high levels of language acculturation (OR, 2.5), and who did not have health insurance (OR, 1.6) had the highest risk for breast cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Because the current results indicated that Mexican-origin women are at high-risk for early onset, premenopausal breast cancer, the authors recommended policies that target screening, education, and treatment to prevent increased disparities in mortality. The authors concluded that the inclusion of community members and policymakers as partners in these endeavors would further safeguard against an increase in cancer health disparities and aid in formulating a policy agenda congruent with scientifically based, community-driven policy efforts that address breast cancer screening, education, and treatment in this vulnerable population.

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Missing data often occur in cross-sectional surveys and longitudinal and experimental studies. The purpose of this study was to compare the prediction of self-rated health (SRH), a robust predictor of morbidity and mortality among diverse populations, before and after imputation of the missing variable "yearly household income." We reviewed data from 4,162 participants of Mexican origin recruited from July 1, 2002, through December 31, 2005, and who were enrolled in a population-based cohort study. Missing yearly income data were imputed using three different single imputation methods and one multiple imputation under a Bayesian approach. Of 4,162 participants, 3,121 were randomly assigned to a training set (to derive the yearly income imputation methods and develop the health-outcome prediction models) and 1,041 to a testing set (to compare the areas under the curve (AUC) of the receiver-operating characteristic of the resulting health-outcome prediction models). The discriminatory powers of the SRH prediction models were good (range, 69-72%) and compared to the prediction model obtained after no imputation of missing yearly income, all other imputation methods improved the prediction of SRH (P < 0.05 for all comparisons) with the AUC for the model after multiple imputation being the highest (AUC = 0.731). Furthermore, given that yearly income was imputed using multiple imputation, the odds of SRH as good or better increased by 11% for each $5,000 increment in yearly income. This study showed that although imputation of missing data for a key predictor variable can improve a risk health-outcome prediction model, further work is needed to illuminate the risk factors associated with SRH.

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BACKGROUND: We investigated environmental and occupational exposures and smoking history (while controlling for demographics) in a population of Mexican-American lung cancer cases and controls from the Houston metropolitan area. METHODS: Data were collected between 1991 and 2005 as part of an on-going multi-racial/ethnic, lung cancer case-control study. Cases included 212 Mexican-American lung cancer cases from UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. Controls (n = 328) were recruited from Houston's largest multispecialty group practice and frequency matched to the cases by age (± 5 years), sex, and ethnicity. Environmental and occupational factors were analyzed and odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated using logistic regression. RESULTS: We detected elevated risks of lung cancer associated with pesticide exposure and found conventional and antimicrobial (e.g., sterilizers, disinfectants, antiseptics) pesticides were associated with an increased risk of lung cancer in Mexican-Americans (conventional pesticides and antimicrobial pesticides combined: OR = 1.80, 95% CI 1.13-2.86; conventional pesticides: OR = 2.05, 95% CI 1.23-2.39; antimicrobial pesticides: OR = 2.48, 95% CI 1.46-4.21). CONCLUSIONS: Although we found over a two-fold increased risk of lung cancer among Mexican-Americans for pesticides, we could not identify individual pesticides. Our findings are an important preliminary step in identifying factors that are specifically associated with lung cancer risk among Mexican Americans.

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OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to evaluate the relationship between maternal and childhood BMI at baseline in a group of 5- to 18-year-old children and their mothers, all of whom were of Mexican origin, low socioeconomic status, and enrolled in a cohort study in Houston, TX. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Using data from 438 mother-child dyads residing in the same household, we completed logistic regression analyses to determine maternal factors associated with the child being overweight or at-risk-for-overweight, after adjusting for the child's gender, age, and level of physical activity and other maternal confounders. RESULTS: Almost one-half of the boys and girls (47% and 44%, respectively) were either overweight or at-risk-for-overweight. Obese mothers were twice as likely to have an overweight and/or at-risk-for-overweight child compared with normal-weight mothers. Women born in the U.S. were twice as likely to have an overweight and/or at-risk-for-overweight child compared with women born in Mexico. In addition, women with less than a high school education were twice as likely to have an overweight child compared with their more educated peers. DISCUSSION: The high prevalence of overweight or at-risk-for-overweight among Mexican-origin children of low socioeconomic status suggests a continued need to develop and implement culturally sensitive preventive interventions for this minority population. Our data also suggest a need to tailor such interventions particularly for children of obese mothers and those born in the U.S.

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Self-rated health (SRH), a consistent predictor of mortality among diverse populations, is sensitive to health indicators and social factors. American-born Hispanics report better SRH than their foreign-born counterparts but simultaneously report poorer health indicators and have shorter life expectancy. Using a matched prospective cross-sectional design, we analyzed data from 631 age-matched pairs of women, born in the United States or Mexico, enrolled in a cohort study based in Houston, Texas. Our first goal was to describe the relationships between SRH and health behaviors, physician-diagnosed chronic conditions, acculturation, and socioeconomic status (SES) by birthplace. Our second goal was to investigate the relative influence of SES, acculturation, health behaviors, and physician-diagnosed conditions in explaining expected differences in SRH between the two groups. Number of chronic conditions reported, particularly depression, more strongly influenced SRH than SES, acculturation, or reported health risk behaviors and the influence of birthplace is accounted for by these factors.