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Groups Launch Effort to Promote Smoking Cessation Among American Indians
The University of Kansas Medical Center has helped develop a program aimed at reducing smoking rates among residents of Native American Indian reservations, Indian Country Today reports. Created as part of a partnership between the hospital and the American Lung Association, the All Nations Breath of Life program provides free smoking cessation assistance to Native Americans and provides them the opportunity to learn and explain the importance of sacred tobacco to their respective nations. As part of the program, which typically lasts approximately eight weeks, fellow American Indians lead discussions with participants on various smoking cessation topics, such as use of tobacco, facts about smoking, how to quit, dealing with withdrawal and cravings, traditional tobacco use, support from family, and preventing relapse. Participants then spend three weeks away from the group participants and return for a group session at the 12-week mark. After three months, participants return again for a final group session. Throughout the program, participants have access to telephone counseling services. To date, the program has worked with approximately 220 tribes in both urban and reservation communities in the greater Kansas City area, as well in Oklahoma, California and Minnesota. The program has funding to continue for four years and is also exploring the possibility of developing a telemedicine version of the program (Whitehead, Indian Country Today, 10/22/09).