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Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Native Hawaiians
Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Native Hawaiians (AAPINH) are often reported as having the lowest commercial tobacco use rates among people living in the United States.
This can be misleading, due to the large number of diverse ethnic groups being pooled together, which can underreport commercial tobacco use among particular populations of AAPINH.
Many ethnic groups who do use tobacco at higher rates also face language access challenges and limited/lack of insurance.
For example, in California, smoking prevalence among Filipino, Korean and Vietnamese men has been consistently and disproportionately high as compared to the general population, showing "one-size-fits-all" types of intervention strategy for AAPINH is not effective.
Community-based, culturally appropriate, and gender-specific interventions for quitting tobacco might be an option for AAPINH living in ethnic communities facing language barriers.
In Michigan, the MDHHS Tobacco Program faces similar barriers to collecting date on commercial tobacco use and providing diverse services to meet the needs of AAPINH communities.
The MDHHS Tobacco Control program is dedicated to working with national, state, and community-based organizations to gather information on commercial tobacco use among Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Native Hawaiians to help make culturally appropriate tobacco services that meet the diverse needs of these communities and improve health disparities.
If you are interested in participating in future collaborative efforts to reduce commercial tobacco use in Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian communities within our state, please contact us at 517-335-8376.
Resources
- Asian Smokers Quitline (Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego)
- Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, or Pacific Islanders and Tobacco Use (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
- Tobacco Use in Asian American Communities (Asian Pacific Partners for Empowerment, Advocacy and Leadership)
- Nguyen AB. Disaggregating Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (AANHOPI) Adult Tobacco Use: Findings from Wave 1 of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study, 2013-2014. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. April 2019; 6(2):356-363.
- Vyasa P, Tsoha JY, Gildengorinc G, et al. Disentangling Individual and Neighborhood Differences in the Intention to Quit Smoking in Asian American Male Smokers Prev Med Rep. Feb 11, 2020; 18:101064.
- The Michigan Tobacco Quitlink (1-800-QUIT-NOW) can provide support for individuals who want to quit smoking. It can be hard to quit. The Quitlink recognizes that some groups of people are impacted by tobacco in unique ways and may need more support with quitting. To learn more about how quitting benefits your community, visit the Quitlink's Tobacco and You page.
- For additional resources and webinars, please visit our MDHHS Tobacco Control Program Online Tobacco Resource Library page.
- More data and reports related to commercial tobacco use and quitting rates can be found on our Data & Statistics About Tobacco in Michigan webpage.
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