Large brooklyn study: few older minorities get breast ca screening.(Gynecology)

SAN DIEGO -- Breast cancer screening rates remain low in older minority women, Nathan Consedine, Ph.D., reported at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America.

In a study that he said is the largest of its kind, Dr. Consedine and his associates queried 1,364 ethnically diverse older women in Brooklyn, N.Y., about facilitators and barriers to breast cancer screening.

Deterrents to screening were being single (30% less likely to screen), and being English Caribbean (45% less likely), Haitian (55% less likely), or Eastern European (74% less likely).

When cognitive and emotional variables were added to the analysis, ethnicity ceased to predict screening in most cases, said Dr. Consedine, a psychologist who is deputy director of the Intercultural Institute on Human Development and Aging at Long Island University, New York.

The cognitive and emotional variables most commonly related to a lack of breast cancer screening included worry about breast cancer, the idea that mammography is painful, the belief that a bruise or sore causes cancer, stress about cancer, and the belief that conventional cancer treatment is bad.

"This suggests that a large proportion of the variance associated with ethnicity can be 'explained' through reference to differences in health beliefs and emotions. This finding is singularly important, for while ethnicity cannot be intervened with, psychological variables can be altered," he said.

Study participants had a mean ...