Racial and ethnic disparities in smoking-cessation interventions: analysis of the 2005 National Health Interview Survey.
BACKGROUND
Recent national surveys document racial and ethnic disparities in receipt of smoking-cessation advice. This study updates and expands prior analyses using survey data for 2005, and evaluates the association between smokers' race and ethnicity and three separate measures of healthcare-encounter-based tobacco interventions: screening, smoking-cessation advice, and use of smoking-cessation aids.


METHODS
Analyses are based on 4756 smokers (aged 18 and older) reporting a healthcare encounter within the past year who participated in the 2005 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Multivariate-adjusted OR and 95% CI for receipt of tobacco interventions in non-Hispanic black and Hispanic smokers were compared to those of non-Hispanic white smokers, adjusted for smokers' characteristics (sociodemographics, health status, and healthcare-utilization factors, and smoking-related characteristics). Analyses were done in 2006.


RESULTS
Results show that compared to white smokers, black and Hispanic smokers had significantly lower odds of (1) being asked about tobacco use (AOR=0.70 and AOR=0.69, respectively); (2) being advised to quit (AOR=0.72 and AOR=0.64, respectively); or (3) having used tobacco-cessation aids during the past year in a quit attempt (AOR=0.60 and AOR=0.59, respectively). Compared to 2000 NHIS published data, the prevalence of receipt of advice to quit from a healthcare provider increased from 52.9% in 2000 to 61.2% in 2005, with increases across racial and ethnic groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Despite progress in smokers' being advised to quit during healthcare encounters in the past 5 years, black and Hispanic smokers continue to be less likely than whites to receive and use tobacco-cessation interventions, even after control for socioeconomic and healthcare factors. Further actions are needed to understand and eliminate this disparity.
Cokkinides
Vilma E
VE
Epidemiology and Surveillance Research, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA 30303-1002, USA. vcokkini@cancer.org
Halpern
Michael T
MT
Barbeau
Elizabeth M
EM
Ward
Elizabeth
E
Thun
Michael J
MJ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003376:Counseling; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006306:Health Surveys; D054625:Healthcare Disparities; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D044469:Racial Groups; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000208:ethnology*; D014481:United States