According to a New Study...

While quitting can be a daunting task for any smoker, it may be more difficult for minority smokers than for white smokers, researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have found.

The scientists enrolled 360 white, 126 African-American, and 73 Hispanic smokers in an eight-week program that provided them with counseling, nicotine patches, and the smoking cessation aid bupropion. The study, supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, found that 60 percent of white patients were able to stay smoke-free for a target of four weeks, compared to only 38 percent of African-Americans and 41 percent of Hispanics.

“Our analysis implies that the burden of tobacco related illness may continue to fall disproportionately on minority racial and ethic groups; it also challenges current assumptions that the same approaches can be applied to all smokers,” researcher Lirio Covey, an associate professor of clinical psychology at CUMC and the director of the Smoking Cessation Program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, said in a press release announcing the results.

Researchers stressed the importance of early intervention with smokers to prevent dangerous long-term smoking habits from starting. With the reasons behind racial disparities in smoking rates still unknown, the team said they also hoped to use data from the study to better understand and combat these differences.

“In order for successful smoking cessation to occur,” Covey said, “treatment must be tailored to specific population groups based on better knowledge of these groups.”