Ariyah DeSouza, Associate Recruitment Marketing Manager:

Almost 45,000 African Americans die from a preventable tobacco-related disease every year, roughly 10 percent of the total smoking-related deaths in the U.S. annually. While black Americans have higher smoking rates than white Americans, they have a lower quitting success rate. This might be due to African Americans’ much greater use of menthol cigarettes (80 percent of black Americans smoke them), which anesthetize the throat, allowing greater inhalation of nicotine (source).

African-Americans disproportionately suffer from chronic and preventable disease compared to their Caucasian counterparts. Smoking and other tobacco use are key contributors to the three major causes of death for blacks – heart disease, cancer and stroke. And more than 25 percent of black youth are exposed to secondhand smoke at home.

The good news is, African-Americans are reportedly using telephone help lines to quit tobacco more often than expected. A long-term report says they’re 44 to 140 percent more likely than white smokers to call a state quitline. And they’re more responsive to media advertising of quitlines, while receiving roughly the same level of advertising as white counterparts.

The California study was based on 18 years of data (from 1992 to 2009). These findings go against other public health reports that say African Americans are less likely to use services that might help them. The lead study author says that some researchers attribute avoidance of services to past experiences of racial discrimination within the healthcare system.

Quitlines are proven to work and can be accessed easily by anyone with a phone. Other effective tobacco cessation programs present barriers to access, including cost, time, and transportation. Quitlines, however, are free, convenient and anonymous, and their effectiveness is supported by the Surgeon's General’s most recent guidelines on or treating tobacco use and dependence.

A network of state quitlines now serves more than 500,000 people each year. California was the first state to establish a quitline in 1992. As of 2011, every state has a tobacco quitline; 27 of them are provided by Alere Wellbeing.

For more facts on tobacco use among African-Americans, see the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) here and the American Lung Association® here.

The original story was compiled by the Health Behavior News Service, part of the Center for Advancing Health.