Disparities in smoking: data from the Nashville REACH 2010 project

The Nashville REACH 2010 project is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce health disparities in diabetes and heart disease among African Americans in Nashville, Tenn. While Tennessee has the third highest smoking rate (26.1%) in the United States, there are few appropriate local data useful for planning and evaluating local antismoking interventions. Data gathered for Nashville REACH 2010 from 4 large random telephone surveys were pooled to produce a database (n = 15,076) to define the extent of the local smoking disparity and the subgroups with the highest and lowest prevalence of smoking. African American women were least likely to smoke (21.3%) followed by white women (24.9%), and then African American and white men (27.3% and 27.9%, respectively). Among African American subgroups, smoking was lowest in students (10.8%) and retirees (17.1%) and highest in unemployed men (45.9%). In a logistic regression, smoking was highest among single men, the lowest educational level, the unemployed, the lowest income groups, and those between 40 and 50 years of age.