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New Haven Health Atlas: Tobacco and Smoking in Adults
Smoking tobacco is damaging to nearly every organ in the body, and is a major contributor to cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, and respiratory diseases. Smoking effects the smoker and also those exposed to second hand smoke. It also can affect fetal health when pregnant women smoke during pregnancy.
Headlines
1. In New Haven (1998-2003), a higher proportion of Black adults smoke (25%) compared to White and Hispanic adults (20% and 16%, respectively). It is important to note that the confidence intervals indicate that Black and Hispanic proportions are not significantly different from the White rates, however, Blacks do smoke significantly more than Hispanics.
2. Overall, New Haven’s adult smoking prevalence is higher than the HP2010 goal.
3. New Haven’s age-adjusted adult smoking rate is slightly lower than the state’s, and lower than in Bridgeport and Hartford.
Data
Percent of Adults Currently Smoking (1998-2003)
19% - New Haven
24% - Hartford
25% - Bridgeport
20% - Connecticut
24% - HP2010 Baseline (1998)
12% - HP2010 Goal
Source: BRFSS
Percent of Adults Currently Smoking by Race/Ethnicity (1998-2003)
20% - White, not Hispanic
25% - Black, not Hispanic
16% - Hispanic
Source: BRFSS
Other Resources
1. The CARE project has completed surveys and asset maps of 6 lower-resource New Haven neighborhoods. Conducted in late 2009, the surveys and maps focus on factors impacting tobacco use and nutrition, and found that about 1 in 3 residents of the 6 neighborhoods (33%) are daily smokers. Smoking rates have increased nationwide since the economic downturn, which may be reflected in these unusually high figures (compare with the citywide data above, for example).
2. "New RWJF Interactive Tobacco Map Highlights Local Policy Concerns," CT Data Blog, March 2010: http://www.ctdatahaven.org/blog/2010/03/rwjf-tobacco-map-policy/
2. An analysis of tobacco environment conditions in Providence, Rhode Island shows that in a typical city, the concentration of tobacco sales and advertisements can vary significantly, and is often correlated with the location of schools. These maps compare two neighborhoods: http://local.provplan.org/enews/fom/Tobacco.pdf (PDF File).
