Alcohol abuse is a ubiquitous issue for college students across the United States (U.S.) including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI). As compared to their counterparts, NHPI students tend to underutilize university counseling services and have significantly lower retention rates than their White counterparts. Considering that NHPI may be reluctant to go to counseling, their levels of distress and alcohol abuse may have to reach a higher threshold before they seek treatment. This study examined NHPI college students' presenting levels of alcohol abuse both at intake and over time and compared these students to students from other ethnic/racial groups. Data were gathered from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH), a practice-research network used by hundreds of college counseling centers across the U.S. Aggregated data from the years 2012-2015 included variables measured by the Standardized Data Set (SDS) and the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms (CCAPS). The data were analyzed using Latent Growth Modeling (LGM) to assess the differences at intake and over time in alcohol abuse and distress across ethnic groups. Results of this study indicated that NHPI college students at college counseling centers had higher levels of alcohol abuse and presenting distress at intake than students from other ethnic/racial groups. However, NHPI did not have significantly different changes in levels of alcohol abuse from session one to session 12 as compared to other students. Implications and directions for further research are also discussed.

This diploma thesis deals with ethnic differences in the incidence of colorectal cancer. One of the primary aims is to analyze the influence of selected socio-demographic factors, health factors and lifestyle factors on the incidence of colorectal cancer. Another main aim is to find out if there are ethnic differences in the incidence of colorectal cancer in the United States to determine the contribution of the influence of selected socio-demographic and lifestyle factors using the data from the PLCO database. PLCO is a case-control study which includes individual data collected from approximately 155,000 respondents in the United States. The main finding is a significant influence of respondents' age structure, gender, ethnicity, education, family history of colorectal cancer as well as diabetes on the incidence of colorectal cancer. It has also been suggested that alcohol consumption, smoking and obesity increase the risk of colorectal cancer. On the contrary, an increased intake of vitamin D and drugs containing acetylsalicylic acid (in this case aspirin) reduces the risk of colorectal cancer. The influence of age structure and gender on the risk of developing colorectal cancer has been determined as statistically significant in African Americans, Caucasians and others (including the remaining...

Ethnic differences in etiological factors linked to body image dissatisfaction and eating disorders were examined. In addition, the interaction of acculturation and body image dissatisfaction in influencing minority women's relationships with their parents was investigated. Participants consisted of 302 undergraduates from three ethnic groups: Caucasian, Hispanic American, and African American women who were administered self-report measures. Differences were not found between the groups in body image dissatisfaction. Low self-esteem, internalization of the thin ideal, and family emphasis on weight and appearance were all related to more body image dissatisfaction for each of these groups; however, differences in degree of endorsement were also noted between the ethnic groups on these factors. Based on the interaction findings (body image x acculturation) separation from one's mother was found in the area of attitudes and emotions for the Hispanic sample but not for the African American sample on any of the parent scales. Areas for future research and implications for diagnosis and treatment of minority populations are also discussed.

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