UC Davis Cancer Center researchers have discovered Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese American men in California die of cancer at three times the rate of south Asian women in California. Bruce N. Leistikow, associate professor of public health sciences and an expert on epidemiology of smoking related illnesses, said the study found that smoke exposure can account for the vast disparities in cancer death rates among gender-ethnic groups; it can account for more than a third of the overall cancer death rate for women and the great majority of the male rate; and it may cause more non-lung than lung cancer deaths.