ASPIRE Cohort Aims to Advance Asian American Health

Sunmin Lee, ScD, kicks off her effort to recruit 1,800 participants for a first-of-its-kind cohort, helping researchers better understand and prevent cancer in Asian American communities.

Why do Asian American women who have never smoked have an elevated risk of lung cancer? Why are more Asian American women developing breast cancer at a younger age? And why is cancer the leading cause of death for most Asian American groups?

“We need to conduct more research to understand and reduce the health disparities that Asian Americans experience,” says Sunmin Lee, ScD, a professor of hematology and oncology in the UC Irvine School of Medicine. Asian Americans account for around 7% of the U.S. population, yet only 0.17% of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding supports studies on Asian Americans.

Recognizing this shortfall, the NIH National Cancer Institute awarded $12.45 million in 2024 to create a national cohort, called ASPIRE (Asian American Prospective Research), for a longitudinal study on cancer risks in Asian American communities. Researchers at UC San Francisco are leading the study, in partnership with teams at UC Irvine, UC Davis, Cedars-Sinai, and Temple University.

“Living in the U.S. as a first-generation Asian American woman, I have learned that numerous factors affect our health and the health disparities we experience,” says Lee. “Yet we do not have sufficient data to understand all these factors.” She aims to change that as she kicks off recruitment for the ASPIRE cohort at UC Irvine.

The ASPIRE Cohort

“We are participating as one of the five sites to recruit diverse groups of Asian Americans,” says Lee, who is collaborating closely on this work with her colleague Wendy Cozen, DO, in the School of Medicine and with Sora Tanjasiri, DrPH, of the School of Population and Public Health.

The goal is to recruit, over the next three to four years, 1,800 Asian Americans aged 40–75, including Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Asian Indian, Filipino, Japanese, Cambodian, Thai or other Asian Americans (including subgroups such as Burmese or Indonesian). Participants, who should not have a cancer diagnosis, will complete four surveys during a one-year period. Recruitment is also occurring at UCSF and the three other partner sites.

“Data collected from the ASPIRE cohort will contribute to answering some unique questions related to cancer among Asian Americans,” says Lee, who is also Co-Leader of the Cancer Control Program at the UCI Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Researchers will study the increasing rates of breast cancer in young Asian American women, the relatively high rates of nasopharyngeal cancer in Chinese Americans, liver cancer in Southeast Asian Americans, gastric cancer in Korean and Japanese Americans, and thyroid cancer in Filipino Americans, among others.

“I am fortunate to have a talented team of student research assistants and staff who are bilingual and bicultural to support the study,” says Lee, who, for 20 years, has also maintained a local community advisory board. “All the research I conduct is community-engaged. I regularly communicate with Asian American community leaders to learn about their health needs and how I can address them.”

Diversity & Disparities

As we celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month throughout May, Lee stresses the diversity of Asian Americans.

“As an Asian American health researcher, I want to bring to your attention that Asian Americans immigrated from more than 30 countries, speak more than 100 languages, and have a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds,” she says. “There is a model minority myth, where Asian Americans are considered highly educated, well-off and healthy, but many are living below the poverty line, do not speak English well, experience discrimination and lack access to healthcare.”

Through her lab at UC Irvine, Lee leads epidemiologic and intervention studies aimed at reducing health disparities for Asian Americans. “As a social epidemiologist by training, I employ observational and intervention studies and use both quantitative and qualitative data analysis to comprehensively understand the causes of health disparities and promote the health of Asian Americans,” she says. Some of her lab’s focus areas include sleep disparities and cancer prevention.

A long-term goal for Lee is to generate more high-quality data to inform the development of policies that promote the health of Asian Americans, so she encourages qualified participants to join the ASPIRE cohort. “You are making a difference in promoting the health of Asian Americans by participating in this study.”

If you have questions about the ASPIRE cohort, email aspire@uci.edu or call 949-602-4338.

— Shani Murray