Estimating breast cancer incidence in Hispanic women in Connecticut, 1989-1991.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to estimate incidence rates for breast cancer, the most commonly occurring cancer in women, in the growing Hispanic population of Connecticut.


METHODS
The population-based Connecticut Tumor Registry (CTR) routinely obtains only limited information on Hispanic origin and maiden name. In this study, surnames of CTR breast cancer patients diagnosed in 1989-1991 were matched with a list of Spanish surnames. To assess misclassification, both surnames and maiden names (from death certificates) of female Connecticut residents who had died in 1989-1991 from any cause of death at 20 years of age and older were matched with the Spanish-surname list.


RESULTS
Age-specific incidence rates (1989-1991) for 'Hispanic' women (with Spanish surname) were lower than those for 'non-Hispanic' white women (with non-Spanish surname) for age 35-39 years and older. Errors in these estimated rates were probably small because among decedents the number with a Spanish surname differed by only 9% from the number with a Spanish maiden name; false positives were almost balanced by false negatives.


CONCLUSIONS
Matching of surnames in the cancer registry with a Spanish surname list provided reasonably accurate estimates of cancer incidence rates in Hispanic women, although individual women were misclassified as 'Hispanic' or 'non-Hispanic'.
Polednak
A P
AP
Connecticut Tumor Registry, Department of Public Health and Addiction Services, Hartford 06106, USA.
D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology*; D002423:Cause of Death; D003237:Connecticut / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008393:Marriage / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged; D009275:Names; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018426:SEER Program