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DrugScreening.org


 
Tobacco Advertising Linked to Health Problems in Poor Neighborhoods
July 13, 2001

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Research Summary

Researchers say omnipresent tobacco advertising could be help explain why people in poor neighborhoods are more likely to have heart attacks, the Associated Press reported July 11.

Columbia University researchers found that white people in the poorest neighborhoods were 70 percent more likely to have heart attacks than whites in the best neighborhoods. Likewise, blacks in the poorest neighborhoods were 40 percent more likely to have heart attacks than those living in the best areas. "Neighborhoods may differ in the amount of tobacco advertising and in the availability and cost of healthful foods," the researchers concluded.

For the study, researchers looked at census blocks of 1,000 people in Jackson, Miss.; Forsyth County, N.C.; Washington County, Md.; and suburban Minneapolis, Minn.

Dr. Ana V. Diez Roux, who led the research, said factoring in cholesterol levels, exercise, and other medical and behavioral risk factors did not significantly change the results.

"It's a great piece of work," Dr. Michael Alderman, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, said of the study. "It demonstrates that environment isn't just the personal experience -- your behaviors like cigar smoking and jogging and cholesterol. Your environment can be of a communal nature."

The study's findings are published in the July 12 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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