The latest round of grants in a nine-year, forty-million dollar program to cut tobacco use in Missouri will look at various population groups. The Missouri Foundation for Health is funding the studies of Bosnian immigrants, people with alternate life styles, those with mental problems or addictions, people living in an African-American neighborhood in St. Louis, and pregnant women and small children.

Foundation spokesman Bev Pfeifer-Harms says each group has different reasons for smoking. She says basic information finds smoking among homosexuals is 250% higher than the general population; that tobacco use among those with serious mental illnesses and addiction performers also is high, and so is smoking among Bosnian immigrants who have moved to Missouri is sizeable numbers–particularly to St.Louis. The goal–learning why different population groups are disproportionately affected by tobacco use, and tailoring specific programs to help those groups quit.

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