Breast cancer screening practices among Cambodian women in Houston, Texas.

BACKGROUND

Faced with Western medicine and a health care system that is unfamiliar, Cambodian women experience barriers to breast cancer prevention activities and thus are seldom reached through current breast cancer education and prevention activities. This study examined the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of breast cancer screening among Cambodian women in Houston, Texas.

METHODS

Two hundred sixteen Cambodian women aged 18 years or older were surveyed by telephone.

RESULTS

Logistic regression analysis identified five variables as significant predictors of ever having had a clinical breast examination: perceived barriers to clinical breast examination, income, written-language acculturation, knowledge about clinical breast examination recommendations, and education in the United States. Education and knowledge of mammography were found to be important predictors of mammography. Language acculturation variables were not associated with ever having had mammography.

CONCLUSIONS

The rate of breast cancer screening among Cambodian women in Houston is lower than that for all women in the United States. These results underscore the importance of developing culturally and linguistically appropriate breast cancer prevention activities for Cambodian women, who face cultural and language barriers to traditional services.