Disparities, Cessation, and Neuroscience
Research that will lead to the prevention and reduction of the use of tobacco products and tobacco related health disparities in California’s disproportionately impacted populations and advance our knowledge regarding the neuroscience of addiction.
While significant advances in the science and practice of tobacco control have been evident over the past 20 years, it is also clear that certain populations, including military personnel, specific ethnic and racial groups, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, and those in the lowest socioeconomic strata, continue to bear a disproportionate burden of tobacco-related illness and death. California is composed of a sizable majority of these populations, including the largest “minority” population in the United States (57% of the state population) and an estimated 1,079,000 lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals (2.96% of the population). TRDRP is committed to prioritizing and supporting the scientific investigation needed to identify optimal strategies to address health inequities and to understand how to interrupt increasing disparities among certain populations.
Health Disparities and Health Equity: The Issue is Justice
This provocative and revealing title goes right to the core of health disparities and why they are not just facts and figures. Health inequities and disparities are social justice issues that must be addressed.
Read Braverman, et al., as they define and tackle this complex issue: http://www.slideshare.net/jimbloydmph/health-disparities-and-health-equity-the-issue-is-justice
'Predatory' cigarette marketing to US black youth: Targeted marketing at its worst
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Recently published ground-breaking research funded by TRDRP documents the tobacco industry’s targeting of Black youth for menthol tobacco use. |
| In places with more black youth, the price of Newports, a top brand of menthols, was lower and more advertisements could be seen. |
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"For every 10-percentage-point increase in the proportion of African-American students at a school, the proportion of advertisements for menthol cigarettes increased by 5.9 percentage points. Additionally, the odds of an advertised discount for Newport, the leading brand of menthol cigarettes, were 1.5 times greater." For every 10 percent increase in the number of black students at a nearby school, the price of a pack of Newports was 12 cents lower. Similar discounts by demographics were not seen in a leading non-menthol brand, Marlboro. |
Specific populations of Asian Americans have significantly higher rates of smoking
TRDRP-funded researchers are tackling Vietnamese male smoking by developing a Vietnamese family intervention guided by qualitative interviews, community input, and medical literature: A Family Intervention to Reduce Smoking in Vietnamese Men
Read more about family factors associated with intention to quit among male Vietnamese American smokers.
