Honorable Mention
Pioneering research in Pacific lifestyles

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Staff Writer

Nutrition researcher Jean Hankin helps Pacific communities accurately report their food intake, crucial information for long-term cancer studies. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

She is a sought-after researcher and lecturer, has written 130 publications in leading scientific journals and books, and is on the editorial boards of three key journals in her field.

Her area of expertise — devising and analyzing the methods by which food habits are examined — is so arcane that it's difficult for an amateur to understand exactly what it is that she does.

An intimidating interview prospect ... but then you encounter this diminutive woman in a pastel pantsuit, with rhinestones glued to her brightly painted toenails, a merry laugh and a healthy appreciation for popcorn and tortilla chips.

Although she's proud of the work she's done and the recognition she's received from her colleagues, Hankin, 78, isn't much given to talking about herself, preferring to shine the light on the work itself and the signs of hope in understanding cancer.

This is the classic profile of one who would be inducted into the "Compadres Wall of Fame," a quirky little honor that's given out from time to time by Compadres Restaurant founder Rick Enos to "unsung heroes" in the community. The recognition isn't anything earthshaking: a celebratory luncheon (the proceeds of which go to the awardee's favorite charity) and a picture on the wall of the restaurant. But the members of the Sisterhood of Temple Emanu-El, who organized a lunch for Hankin Oct. 5, were delighted to recognize their self-deprecating friend.

Dede Guss met Hankin 20 years ago in an exercise class. Today, Guss's children call her "Auntie Jean." "She's a very thoughtful, generous person," said Guss. "Once she takes you under her wing, she's like family."

Guss was instrumental in talking Hankin into accepting the Wall of Fame honor; Hankin was reluctant until Guss told her the money from the luncheon would go the sisterhood's efforts to beautify the temple, of which they're both members. "If it was doing some good for someone else, it was OK," said Guss. "That's typical of her."

Hankin began her career as a hospital dietitian in 1945, at a time when the chief concern of American nutrition experts was assuring that people got enough food to prevent nutrient-deficiency diseases.

The idea that dangers might lurk in the everyday American diet of meat and potatoes (and gravy and a canned fruit salad and buttered bread and something rich for dessert) was hardly on the minds of researchers, much less the topic of everyday conversation, as it is today.

Even then, said Hankin, "I got interested in that whole idea that what we eat plays a role in our health."

Hankin was also raised at a time when young women became nurses (or dietitians) but not doctors, and teachers but not scientists. But her parents were supportive, and science always came easily to her. She admits, however, that her mother probably wished she'd get married (she never did, she says cheerfully).

Before she'd been a nutritionist long, her mentors were urging her to continue her studies, and her interests were gravitating toward epidemiology (studying the causes, distribution and control of diseases in large populations) and biostatistics (the application of statistics to biological and medical data). "I was always questioning things — why do some people get certain diseases while others do not? I was interested in more than just the diets of individual patients," she said.

In 1968, shortly after she received her doctorate from the University of California-Berkeley, Hankin stopped off in Hawai'i on her way back from a study she was working on in the South Pacific, and went to say hello to the associate dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Hawai'i, who promptly offered her a job. She declined then, but in 1969, she became an associate professor of public health at UH. Not long after, she began working with the Cancer Research Center here as well and continues that work today.

Her research has for some years been focused on food habits and cancer incidence in people in the Pacific and on the West Coast. She has helped design numerous studies meant to get at the real-life practices of people with regard to food, along with gathering data on lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, medication, heredity, family history and medical history.

This might seem like simple stuff, but just try to recall what you had to eat a couple of days ago; try to describe how much you consume of a given type of food. Devising questionnaires and interviewing procedures that will tease out these facts is Hankin's specialty.

Dr. Larry Kolonel, deputy director of the Cancer Research Center, said "pioneer" is not too strong a word to use for Hankin's work. She was among the early researchers of food habits outside of the white European populations of the world, he said. She not only developed culturally sensitive methods by which Asian and Pacific people's eating practices could be studied, she also compiled a unique food composition database that Kolonel said is unparalleled in the world today. It lists the nutritional contents of hundreds of foods not covered in the USDA database, primarily foods consumed by Asians and Pacific Islanders.

In her work, Hankin has made models of food by lacquering fresh fruits and vegetables, taken pictures of food items, carried cups and bowls and spoons and packed along a pot of cooked rice in order to get accurate measures of what interview subjects consider a "serving." ("There's a big difference between what's considered a serving in Hawai'i and what's considered a serving elsewhere," she said, drily.) She's learned that recall beyond 24 hours is spotty at best. And she's learned how to write a questionnaire that is specific enough to be useful to researchers like herself.

At present, she is helping to crunch data for the Hawai'i Los Angeles Multicultural Cohort, a long-term study of the eating habits of 215,000 people of various ethnicities here and in Los Angeles. It started in 1994 and will continue over a long term — perhaps even longer than Hankin is alive.

This doesn't concern her. Though she loves asking the questions, she is content to wait for the answers. The search for the causes of cancer, she said, "is like a detective story. First you need to gather the information. And eventually, you find answers. It won't be ..." she pauses, thoughtfully, "... it won't be tomorrow, but you do get clues along the way, and it's exciting."

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.