Working for a Smoke-Free Millennium with 
Sept/Oct 2000, Volume 3
Note: This publication has been individually transmitted to state tobacco program managers, ASTHO affiliates, and other tobacco prevention professionals. You are encouraged to forward all or part of this publication to STATE HEALTH OFFICIALS, COALITION MEMBERS, and OTHER PARTNERS. The Tobacco Free Press is produced by ASTHO under Cooperative Agreement N.U50/CCU306138-07 with the CDC Office on Smoking and Health. _____________________________________________________________________________________________
Please note: The new format of Tobacco-Free Press was completed at the request of the Tobacco Control Resource Council. Information is now categorized by the CDC National Tobacco Control Program's four goal areas.
CONTENTS:
California
Support for smoke-free bars is growing stronger in
California. According to a survey
conducted this summer for the California Department of Health Services (DHS) by
the Field Research Corporation, a leading independent public opinion research
firm, 73% of bar patrons surveyed said they said they approve of the law that
prohibits smoking in bars. The rate
represents a dramatic 24% increase from the rate of 59% in 1998 when the law
took effect and the first poll was conducted.
In addition, support for the law
among smokers almost doubled since 1998, increasing from 24% to 44%. According to State Health Director Diana M.
Bonta, DrPH, RN, there is a high compliance
rate with 86% of bar patrons obeying the law.
For
more information, contact Ken August or Lea Brook at 916-657-3064.
Kansas
The Kansas Health Foundation, a private
philanthropic organization, is reviving its "Let's Take It Outside"
campaign to remind Kansans about the dangers of secondhand smoke to
children. The campaign was originally
launched in April 1997. Telephone
surveys completed after the campaign first ran found that public awareness
of secondhand smoke's health risks
increased and attitudes towards secondhand smoking around children
changed. However, after a recent survey
the Foundation found it necessary to remind the public about the danger of
secondhand smoke and run the ads again. The Foundation plans to spend $675,000
on the campaign.
For
more information, visit http://www.kansashealth.org/
Iowa
Ames city officials agreed that a proposed smoking
ban in restaurants should be extended to bars and other public places.
Sixty-five percent of restaurants in Ames are already smoke-free. Ames would become the first city in Iowa to
outlaw smoking in all restaurants, bars and public places. The city council is
scheduled to vote on the ordinance on November 14th.
New Mexico
On July 25, the Carlsbad City
Council adopted a clean indoor air ordinance that makes most enclosed public
places, including restaurants, smokefree. The ordinance also requires bar areas
within restaurants to be either smokefree or separately enclosed and
ventilated. The ordinance passed by a
vote of five to three. The ordinance
takes effect ninety days after the date of passage. The adoption of the ordinance marks the culmination of four years
of education, awareness-raising, and advocacy by the Carlsbad Task Force for
Clean Indoor Air.
On August 14, the Mesilla
Board of Trustees amended the 1995 Mesilla Smoking Pollution Control Ordinance
to make restaurants smokefree. The
original ordinance had contained a loophole allowing restaurants to designate
up to 40% of their seating as a smoking section. The amendment also requires restaurants with bar areas to either
make those areas smokefree or to separately enclose and ventilate them. There is a six-month phase-in period. The amendment passed by a vote of three to
none, with one Trustee abstaining. The
passage of the amendment comes after five years of work by the Tobacco Free Las
Cruces Coalition. Mesilla is a
predominantly Hispanic, highly traditional community of just over
2,000 residents located
immediately adjacent to Las Cruces.
Like Carlsbad, it depends heavily on tourism.
With the adoption of these
policies, Carlsbad and Mesilla join Las Cruces and Santa Fe as New Mexico
communities with comprehensive clean indoor air ordinances that make most
enclosed public places smokefree.
Call Stephen Babb at 505-528-5138 for more information.
Rhode Island
On September 16th, more than 1000
volunteers for 16th International Coastal Cleanup picked up
cigarette butts and other trash along the Rhode Island shore. "No Butts About it, Bag It!" was
co-sponsored by the Audubon Society of RI, Rhode Island Department of
Environmental Management, Sovereign Bank and the Rhode Island Department of
Health. This is a great program that
other states may choose to implement to increase awareness about the
pollution/litter cigarette butts cause.
Cigarette butts pose a serious threat to marine
wildlife and a hazard threat beachgoers walking along the shoreline. The statistics associated with this marine
debris item are staggering. Cigarette butts have been in the top three most
prevalent items collected since 1992 in the Center for Marine Conservation's
Annual Coastal Cleanup. Cigarettes
burning on the beach have burned bathers' feet. Toddlers have been poisoned from the toxins when they chew on
cigarette butts. Birds and other
wildlife have mistaken cigarette filters for food..
For more information, contact Carol Hall-Walker at (401)
222-1394, x145
Utah
During the month of September,
Davis County released it's $7,000 anti-smoking media campaign, most of which
targeted the low-income population. The
secondhand smoke campaign, contracted through Cromwell & Associates of Salt
Lake City, features a billboard depicting a woman with a cigarette hanging out
of her mouth holding a baby shrouded in smoke.
Health officials were supplied with "quit-kits" complete with
coupons for nicotine patches.
Korean
Americans
A study in Cancer
Practice entitled "Smoking Behavior, Knowledge and Beliefs Among
Korean Americans," surveyed 140 Korean American men and 159 women living
in Chicago. The study found that
smoking is almost exclusively a male behavior (38.5%), where almost 90% of
Korean American women have never smoked.
Respondents with a non-Christian background or no religious affiliation
were 16.5 times more likely to be current smokers. The researchers recommend that healthcare providers become better
informed about smoking behavior in this group and give specific attention to
recently migrated men and those reporting religions other than Christianity.
Go
to http://www.blackwell-science.com/~cgilib/bsinc.bin?Journal=practice
African
American Women
According to a new study published in the October
issue of American Journal of Preventive
Medicine, African-American women are almost twice as likely as white women
to pick up a cigarette after successfully quitting during pregnancy.
Researchers led by Suzan L. Carmichael and Indu B. Ahluwalia, who conducted the
study for the Center for the Advancement of Health, analyzed data gathered in
1996 on 15,000 women in 10 states who answered questionnaires about their
smoking habits two to six months after delivering a baby. Researchers also
found women who gained more than 35 pounds during pregnancy, received
inadequate prenatal care, smoked intensely prior to pregnancy, and reported
five or more significantly stressful events were more likely to relapse.
"The relapse rate among postpartum women is surprising when compared to
the relapse rate of the general smoking population," Carmichael said. It
would seem that since women were able to successfully quit smoking for several
months during pregnancy, they would be less inclined to resume smoking after
childbirth, but that doesn't appear to be the case. "Because smoking
cessation is more likely to occur during pregnancy than at other times during a
woman's childbearing years," Carmichael said, "it is hoped that
determining which populations are most at risk for relapse can point the way to
effective interventions that can help women maintain long-term smoking
cessation."
Please
note that the Oct. issue of the AJPM is not available on-line yet.
Arizona
One hundred fifty participants attended Arizona’s
Fifth Annual Youth Summit on Tobacco Prevention called "Ashes to
Ashes: Bringing Big Tobacco Down in
Flames". The youth participants
were trained on tobacco control issues including leadership skills, community
norm change, action planning and understanding the different levels of
prejudice. The youth will have an
opportunity to apply for mini grants to implement the action plans that they
developed during the summit.
Indiana
“Tobacco. It’s Gonna Cost You,” Indiana’s first
state-sponsored anti-tobacco communication campaign, implemented a contest this
past summer that focused on Gaspin,
the gas-mask-wearing dog featured on TV and radio ads. At the Indiana Black and
Minority Health Fair and the Indiana State Fair, youth answered a tobacco use
quiz to enter the contest to win a 18-inch stuffed toy Gaspin. A smaller stuffed
toy key chain of Gaspin was given
away to youth for participating in an interactive game.
For more information,
contact Mary Ann Hurrle at 317-233-7299.
Maine
Smoking rates decreased 27%
among Maine high school students from 1997 to 1999. The figure is included in a new report on the state's tobacco
control program by the Gallup Organization.
Governor Angus King attributes this decrease to the state's intensive
anti-smoking campaign, Partnership for a Tobacco-Free Maine, and an increase in
cigarette taxes. The Partnership is an
$18 million program funded with tobacco settlement dollars. It is a comprehensive program that includes
an anti-smoking media campaign and cessation programs. In addition, Maine has a smoke-free
restaurant law. Cigarette taxes doubled
in Maine from 37 cents in 1997 to 74 cents per pack of cigarettes. Overall tobacco sales have dropped 17
percent.
Still, smoking rates among
youth are high at 28.6%. In an effort
to increase its efforts to curb youth smoking, the Partnership will be
sponsoring a Youth Summit in Sugarloaf on October 27th. In addition, new television ads created by
Maine youth will be released next spring.
Oklahoma
At the Students Working
Against Tobacco conference in Oklahoma City on October 19th, more than 300
teens worked on prevention programs, including creating an ad to prevent
smoking. Piggy Thomas from MTV's
"Road Rules" made a guest appearance to support the teens. Her character on the show smoked. She has now quit and saw the conference as
an opportunity to give a counter-message "to the kids who watch me and
think it's cool to smoke."
Tennessee
The Coalition for Responsible
Tobacco Retailing holds trainings to teach salespeople in convenience and
grocery stores about state laws governing cigarette sales. The Tennessee Department of Agriculture
regulates the stores, including running sting operations to detect offenders. A survey completed last month found a
violation rate of nearly 26%, according to James Hopper of the State Department
of Agriculture.
West Virginia
Between August 21 and
September 17, teenagers in 25 counties volunteered in stings conducted by the
state health department to crack down on illegal tobacco sales to minors. The teens were accompanied by nonuniformed state or municipal police
officers, who observed any illegal transactions and later issued summons
against violators. West Virginia state
law imposes a $25 fine for first offenders of selling tobacco to minors. If the second offense occurs within two
years of the first offense, a $50 to $100 fine is imposed. Out of the 632 retail stores that were
visited in the sting operation, 122
were caught in illegal tobacco sales to minors.
Wisconsin
The City of Franklin Health
Department with the cooperation of Franklin Public Schools has supported the
development of the Franklin Youth Coalition.
The coalition, established by a public health nurse, a student and a
high school guidance counselor, has provided community activities as
alternatives to using tobacco and alcohol for middle and high school
students. The students participated in
the city's annual 4th of July parade with their float, "Making
Healthy Decisions." The coalition
also staffed booths at elementary school family nights where the students gave
away tobacco-free stickers and assisted younger students in creating their own
tobacco-free buttons.
For more information, contact Kathy Hahn at 414-425-9101.
Effective
Cessation Counseling Program Helps Pregnant Smokers
A brief cessation counseling program, which takes
five to fifteen minutes of a health care provider's time with a pregnant woman,
can result in 30% reduction in smoking, according to a study published in the
Autumn 2000 Tobacco Control Supplement,
Smoking and Pregnancy: Research Findings from the Smoke-Free Families Program.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently awarded
the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at UNC a one-year, $1.2
million grant to establish the Smoke-Free Families National Dissemination
Office. This office will promote the
cessation program to doctors, community health advocates and insurance
providers.
The pregnancy-specific intervention, which
incorporates five steps, can achieve at least a 30% higher rate of reduction in
smoking than other methods.
The steps are:
·
Ask: Health care providers
should ask about tobacco use as part of the information intake process. Many
pregnant women are reluctant to disclose their smoking status at their first
prenatal visit. Deception rates as high as 23% among Medicaid insured and about
14% of privately insured pregnant women have been confirmed. The study
indicates that non-disclosure can be reduced using a simple multiple-choice question
either in a written or oral information intake system.
·
Advise: For women who smoke, health
care professionals can provide clear and strong advice to quit, with
personalized messages about the impact of smoking and quitting.
·
Assess: The willingness of the
woman to make a quit attempt within the next 30 days should be assessed.
·
Assist: For women who want to
attempt to quit, pregnancy-specific self-help materials are available. Health
care providers can also suggest and encourage the use of problem solving
methods and skills, arrange social support in the smoker's environment; and
provide social support as a part of the treatment.
· Arrange: Periodically health care providers should assess the patient regarding smoking status. If she is a continuing smoker, cessation should continue to be encouraged.
Contact
H. Pennington Whiteside, M.P.H., Deputy
Director at (205) 975-8951 for more information
Arizona
The Arizona Department of Health Services' Tobacco Education and Prevention Program (AzTEPP) aired a new anti-tobacco commercial on October 11, 2000. The new ad is a home movie made by a Charles Lewis of Scottsdale, a 40 year old smoker, shortly before he died of lung cancer. Charles speaks about his family, the disease and his 20 year smoking habit. The television commercial is complemented by a radio ad featuring Juli Lewis, Charles' wife, where Juli relives her experience with tobacco and the impact it has had on her family.
Indiana
In 27 primary health clinics and centers, partially
funded by the Indiana State Department of Health, a cessation program is being
implemented that requires the clinician to ask each patient if he or she
smokes. The program, which is targeting individuals without insurance in urban
and rural areas, provides printed cessation materials and the nicotine patch.
Mississippi
Mississippi has 52 tobacco
nurses who were hired through the state's pilot program. They have been trained on the TAP and TEG
cessation program through the Mississippi State Department of Health. Additionally, the ACT (A Comprehensive
Tobacco) Center, an adjunct program of the University of Mississippi's School
of Dentistry, offers the "Taking
ACTion for a Tobacco-Free Mississippi" program. Through this
program health care providers are trained to provide brief interventions to all
tobacco-using patients on the benefits of stopping and to reinforce the
behavior of non-tobacco-using patients.
"Taking ACTion for a Tobacco-Free Mississippi" emphasizes the team approach and encourages
all members of the health care team to attend training.
Nurses have also been trained
to work with Community/Youth Partnerships, law enforcement and faith-based
organizations to implement prevention programs within the school and community.
Washington
The Washington State
Department of Health has unveiled its $5.3 million major
media anti-smoking campaign, paid for with tobacco settlement dollars. The hard-hitting television and radio spots
are aimed at helping people understand the real consequences of smoking and chewing
tobacco. "These ads are not
pretty. They show the effects of
tobacco use in a vivid and personal way that the people of our state have not
seen in ads before," said Secretary of Health Mary Selecky. A toll-free quit line service will become
available in November. Washingtonians
will soon be able to call for no-cost cessation counseling and referrals to
community-based cessation programs.
Community health organizations and anti-smoking advocacy groups also
play a critical role in the overall campaign.
Managed
Care Achievements in Tobacco Control Awards Program
The American Association of Health Plans (AAHP)
Managed Care Achievements in Tobacco Control Awards Program is an opportunity
to recognize member health plans’ efforts to increase interest in and capacity
for reducing health problems caused by tobacco. The awards recognize and honor the innovative and practical
strategies, practices, programs and policies used by health plans to build upon
the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Clinical Practice
Guideline on Smoking Cessation, including evidence-based standards and the
demonstrated strategies outlined in the Guideline. By honoring these exceptional efforts, AAHP demonstrates the
commitment of health plans to promote the wide-spread adoption of effective
tobacco control interventions into routine clinical practice. The 2000 Award winners are:
I. Adult Tobacco Control
·
First Place- Providence Health Plan, Portland,
OR
·
Second Place- Health Alliance Plan, Detroit, MI
·
Special Recognition for Policy Implementation:
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, Eagan, MN
II. Private/Public Partnerships in Tobacco
Control
·
Winner - Group Health Cooperative of Puget
Sound, Seattle, WA
III. Programs of Merit - Adult Tobacco Control
Initiatives
·
Sentara Healthcare, Virginia Beach, VA
·
Care Choices HMO, Farmington Hills, MI
·
HealthPartners, Minneapolis, MN
·
Fallon Community Health Plan, Worcester, MA
IV. Youth/Adolescent Tobacco Control
·
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, Eagan,
MN
For further information on the award winning
programs, contact Anne Cahill at 202 778
3239 or acahill@aahp.org. The awards program descriptions can be found
at http://www.aahp.org/atmc.htm.
Regional
Centers Awarded $8.1 million in Grants
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration's (SAMHSA's) Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP)
awarded $8.1 million in grants on October 2, 2000 to support five regional
Centers for Application of Prevention Technologies (CAPTs), including tobacco
use. The CAPTs help states and
community-based substance abuse prevention programs adopt proven prevention
practices based on scientific research.
The CAPTs will also provide organizational and program evaluation,
technical assistance and training to CBOs.
The use of innovative technology, including videoconferencing,
webcasting and online interactive programming will help keep programs and
states up-to-date with the latest information. Each CAPT received a grant of
$1.6 million to operate in FY 20001.
For more information, visit http://www.samhsa.gov. The CAPTS receiving funding for FY2001 are:
1.
Central
CAPT
Minnestoa Institute of
Public Health; Anoka, MN
1-800-782-1878
2.
Northeast
CAPT
Educational Development
Center, Inc.; Newton, MA
1-888-EDC-CAPT
3.
Southeast
CAPT
Developing Resources for
Education in America, Inc; Jackson, MS
1-800-233-7326
4.
Southwest
CAPT
Southwest Prevention Center
at the University of Oklahoma; Norman, OK
405-325-1454
5.
Western
CAPT
College of Education at the
University of Nevada, Reno
1-888-734-7476
NCI Awards Grants for New State and Community Tobacco Control
Initiative
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded over
$13 million in first-year funding for its new antismoking initiative, the
Research in State and Community Tobacco Control Interventions. These 12 grants will support research on
innovative tobacco prevention and control interventions at the community,
state, or multistate level, and emphasize collaboration between tobacco control
researchers and state-based tobacco control programs. The funds announced on October 19, 2000 will be used for the
first year of the four-year projects.
A revised Request for
Applications (RFA) for additional State and Community Tobacco Control
Interventions Research studies will be issued in October 2000. NCI expects to fund another eight to 10
projects with the next round of funding. Visit
http://dccps.nci.nih.gov/tcrb/scrfa.html
for more information.
American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation Requests Your Help
As
a part of ANR's ongoing effort to keep their Local Tobacco Control Ordinance
Database as up-to-date as possible, please send a copy of ordinances
(preferably with official authorized signatures and enacted date) or notify ANR
of any new ordinances enacted after JUNE 1, 1999 to :
Maggie Leighninger
American Nonsmokers' Rights
Foundation
2530 San Pablo Avenue, Suite
J
Berkeley, CA 94702
Phone: 510-841-3032, Fax: 510-841-3060
.
The Guide to Community Preventive Services is a planned 15 chapter document, covering broad topic areas, which develops systematic reviews of multiple strategies/intervention for each area. In 1996, US Surgeon General, Dr. David Satcher appointed a taskforce of 15 experts of diverse backgrounds in population-based health to develop each section. The second chapter completed concerns tobacco use and prevention It contains three sections and fourteen interventions. The three sections focus on increasing tobacco cessation rates, reducing tobacco use initiation and reducing exposure to ETS. The recommendations for the interventions summarize published evidence on the effectiveness of the interventions. It will be released in the November 10th MMWR. The entire tobacco chapter including the recommendations, the scientific reviews, and an article that pulls all of the federal and major non-federal guidelines together will be published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in February 2001.
Visit http://www.thecommunityguide.org
for more information or contact Dr. Stephanie Zaza at 770-488-8189
Tobacco Industry Sponsorship in the United States, 1994-1999 by Dr. Michael Siegel, MD, MPH, of Boston University School of Public Health provides the first ever comprehensive study of tobacco industry contributions/sponsorships to various groups, causes, events, and activities in the U.S. The report breaks down contributions by 14 different categories, including domestic violence, hunger, minorities, women, politics/government, etc. The report also provides state by state breakouts of contributions by the 14 categories, with cross references to the specific contributions. The report, which was supported by a grant from the American Cancer Society, is available on the internet at http://dcc2.bumc.bu.edu/tobacco.
If your state or organization has any news to report
for the Tobacco Free Press (TFP), please
send to Kristen Tertzakian at
ktertzakian@astho.org or fax
202/371-9797 by December 15th for the next issue.
Any questions or concerns about content or policy
issues, please contact Kristen Tertzakian, Tobacco Control Policy Analyst at ktertzakian@astho.org.
Questions concerning legislative issues should be
directed to Jacalyn Bryan, Deputy Director for Policy and Programs at jbryan@astho.org