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Volume 2, Issue 2May 2009

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El Faro Staff

Current Issue

Summer Research Training Institute Corner

by Dr. Carlos F. Rios-Bedoya

Summer Research Training Institute (SRTI) Corner
 
Hello everyone and welcome again to the SRTI corner of El Faro. As a former trainee of the SRTI and because my requests for updates from other trainees haven’t been successful, I will  report on some of my recent work on intra-ethnic differences on cigarettes smoking at the most recent annual meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco held in Ireland, and on work presented at this conference that focused on Hispanics.
 
The Hispanic related work in which I participated consisted of three different posters. Two of them were on examining intra-ethnic differences among Hispanics with respect to cigarettes smoking. Another poster involving pregnancy and smoking compared different ethnic groups in the United States (US). The first poster evaluated differences in past year smoking among Latino subgroups in the US (Ríos-Bedoya, CF). Using data from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) it was found that compared to Mexican-Americans; Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and other Latinos were more like to have smoked during the year prior to the assessment after controlling for potential confounders. In contrast, when a similar analysis was performed but focusing on evaluating early onset of cigarette smoking (before age 17), only Cubans and Puerto Ricans showed an increased likelihood for initiating smoking before age 17 compared to Mexican-Americans (Catacora, MM & Ríos-Bedoya, CF). The final poster examined ethnic difference regarding prenatal smoking analyzing data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-Wave 1 (Obando, CP & Ríos-Bedoya, CF). Here we have good news: Latinas were less likely than Whites to smoke during pregnancy after controlling for several confounding covariates.
 
It was disappointing that besides our work, only six other projects were presented looking at ethnic differences on tobacco prevention, cessation, and control. One group presented evidence on the importance of the presence of a significant other among Latinos to quit smoking in families with an asthmatic child (Brothers, BM & Borrelli, B). A meta-analysis demonstrated that nicotine replacement therapy is a promising method for cessation among Latinos (Webb, MS et al.). One study focused only on Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico and the cultural acceptability of printed material on smoking relapse prevention among pregnant women (Litvin, EB et al.). Another study found no differences on smoking expectancies across ethnic groups (Dolan, SL et al.). A different group found that among Latino light and heavy smokers perceived reduction of risk upon quitting and perceived risk vulnerability were related to smoking cessation only for Latino light smokers (Hayes, PB et al.). Finally, weight concerns among women calling state quitline were more likely among Hispanic and African Americans (Beebe, LA et al.). In general, race/ethnicity was used as a covariate for statistical control. Very few studies focused on ethnic/racial difference and even fewer on dissimilarities within the Latino population.
 
Did you know?
 
• The NLAAS and the NESARC Wave 1 are publicly available data sets that surveyed a large number of Hispanics.
• Furthermore, the NLAAS and the NESARC Wave 1 include country of origin information for Hispanic participants.
• These two surveys have extensive assessments on legal and illegal drug use.
• The soon to be released NESARC Wave 2 provides follow up information for the majority of participants on Wave 1.
 
If you have comments or suggestions on how to improve this (your) corner send me an email to: carlos.rios@hc.msu.edu.

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