Abstract B78: Factors promoting colorectal cancer screening among California's Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders

In order to achieve the Healthy People Initiatives' goals, health care delivery needs to be responsive to the unique needs of the US's diverse population groups, like its Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders (NHPI). And in order to do so, it is imperative that race/ethnic-specific data be made available for health providers and public health professionals. Promoting preventive health behaviors like colonoscopies, sigmoidoscopies, and fecal occult blood tests will be more effective if the underlying factors that promote these health services are identified. This study examines the factors that promote participation in colorectal cancer screening that may be unique to Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders using the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) concatenating years 2001 and 2003.

Logistic regression models were developed to identify factors that lead to colorectal screenings for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The Andersen Behavioral Model of Health Services Use is the guiding principle in this study due to the mounting literature that demonstrates the importance of predisposing, enabling and need factors for obtaining routine healthcare and the model's predictive utility with regard to the use of health services among other vulnerable populations. SPSS version 15.0 was used to perform unweighted analysis of sample cases and an level of 0.05 was used as the criteria for all statistical tests performed. Chi-square tests were used to determine statistically significant relationships between individual predisposing, enabling and need variables with having a colonoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, or fecal occult blood test in the past 5 years for NHPI 50 years and older. Statistically significant variables were entered into binary logistic regression models to identify which predisposing, enabling and need factors played a significant role in obtaining colorectal cancer screening.

Analyses revealed that age, alcohol consumption, and number of doctor visits in the past year were associated with an increased likelihood of CRC screening, whereas, gender, education, insurance status and having a usual source of care were not statistically significant. Implications for program and policy development are discussed.