Evaluating racial and ethnic disparities in the success of national health care efforts to promote smoking cessation

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 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There have been multiple attempts in the U.S. to close the gap in the quality of health care for diverse racial and ethnic subpopulations. In 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services launched the Healthy People 2020 plan. Two of four main goals of the plan are decreasing racial and ethnic health disparities and attaining high-quality lives free of preventable diseases. Because of this and other programs, a number of improvements in health care have been made that should help reduce health disparities in the U.S. Despite these efforts, some racial/ethnic minority groups still have considerably higher mortality rates from cancer and other smoking-caused conditions and diseases than Non-Hispanic (NH) White people. In addition, there are limited research findings regarding public awareness, efficacy and availability of smoking cessation methods for racial/ethnic minorities. The overall goals of the proposed study are to determine the quality of smoking- cessation-related (SCR) health care for diverse racial and ethnic groups, over-time changes in the quality of the SCR health care, and smokers' awareness and attitudes regarding currently available smoking cessation methods and treatments, as well as identify methods that have been used to successfully quit smoking. The primary investigation will focus on assessing potential differences with respect to each of these factors across the largest racial/ethnic U.S. subpopulations (i.e., NH White, NH Black/African American, and Hispanic); the secondary investigation will concern smaller U.S. subpopulations: NH American Indian/Alaska Native, NH Asian, and NH Multiracial. The necessity of differentiating between relatively large and small subpopulations is confirmed by the preliminary research findings. The data from the Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (TUS-CPS) will be used. The TUS-CPS is the key source of data on smoking behaviors among diverse racial/ethnic groups, including small U.S. subpopulations. The proposed research is innovative because it is the first study to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of smoking cessation efforts across diverse racial/ethnic groups using a representative sample of the adult U.S. population and the first to examine longitudinal changes in the quality of the SCR health care services, as well as differences in the SCR health care services offered to diverse racial/ethnic minorities and non-minorities. Results of the proposed study are expected to play a vital role in improving the health care system as a whole, helping to close the gap in the quality of health care services offered to racial/ethnic minorities and non-minorities, and further decreasing rates of smoking-caused conditions and diseases across all subpopulations. The research findings will be beneficial for further refining smoking cessation programs for diverse subpopulations of smokers, increasing awareness of available smoking cessation interventions and medical treatments, and reducing smoking prevalence and rates of smoking-caused diseases and conditions, especially in underserved Americans.