Epidemiological perspectives of migration research: The example of cancer

Epidemiologic research on migration and health in Germany is increasingly focusing on chronic diseases. Migrant studies can help to identify causes of diseases. They also help to identify health inequalities and can thus contribute to improvements in health care. With regard to cancer, descriptive studies among Turkish migrants and ethnic German immigrants from the Former Soviet Union have shown overall low, but slowly increasing cancer rates as compared to autochthonous Germans. For individual cancer sites such as stomach cancer, migrants appear to experience higher risks than the comparison population. Epidemiologic approaches studying cancer care and services for migrants, as well as analytic studies that allow assessing the particular temporal dynamics of cancer risks among migrant groups, are scarce in Germany. Thus, major challenges for cancer epidemiology among migrants exist in Germany.