Cancer mortality among Mexican immigrants in the United States

In 1980 there were more than 2 million Mexican-born immigrants living in the United States. Mortality statistics for 1979-81 indicate that the standardized mortality ratio for cancer among Mexican immigrants is 72 percent of that among all white males and 77 percent of that among all white females. The age-adjusted death rates of the Mexican-born population for cancers of the lung, colon, rectum, bladder, and breast are significantly lower: less than 60 percent of those for the entire U.S. white population. Excessive levels of cancers of the stomach, liver, and cervix occur among Mexican-born U.S. residents; age-adjusted rates for these sites exceed the rates among the total U.S. white population by more than 75 percent. These data, based on U.S. diagnostic practices, confirm that broad differences--twofold, for some cancer sites--exist between the cancer rates among immigrants from Mexico and other whites in the United States. The close correspondence between the mortality data presented in this study and comparable incidence data from another study indicates that differential survival does not explain the differences in cancer mortality among Mexican immigrants.