The UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) recently awarded the UCI Program in Public Health three research grants to reduce commercial tobacco use and tobacco-related diseases as well as to inform public policy that benefits California’s diverse populations.
Optimizing Equitable Community Tobacco Policy Promotion for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
California enjoys one of the lowest rates of smoking in the U.S., but the rapidly changing landscape of use raises considerable alarms. From 2017 to 2018, e-cigarette use among young adults climbed 48 percent among Asian Americans which places them at the second-highest prevalence compared to Whites and Latinx populations. Low income communities that are less likely to adopt tobacco control policies are more likely to have higher densities of tobacco retailers and marketing. This disparity must be addressed through culturally and linguistically appropriate strategies.
Principal investigator, Sora Park Tanjasiri, DrPH, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, received nearly $700,000 to understand the degree to which community-based tobacco control programs are experiencing a misalignment regarding communities with the greatest needs, and how can those programs be spatially optimized for the greatest risk reductions. Tanjasiri’s team plans to apply the Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center’s health equity framework to come up with their findings.
The research team’s long-term goal is the elimination of tobacco disparities, and the short-term goal is to inform the allocation of funding and services by community tobacco control organizations and local lead agencies in Los Angeles and Orange counties, which have the largest numbers of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the state. Ultimately, the strength of this study stems from its basis in real world observations, application of essential data disaggregation, and spatial analyses.
Effects of Socio-Demographic And Neighborhood Characteristics on Vaping Trends among Teenagers in Calif.
Under the mentorship of Dr. Tanjasiri, doctoral student of epidemiology, Andrew Vu, is studying the factors that may be playing a role in any disparities when it comes to ecigarette use, such as neighborhood or socio-demographic characteristics (income, unemployment, etc.).
Vu’s study will look at the trends of these risk factors along with the trends of e-cigarette use in teenagers to see which characteristics may be influencing vaping. Another factor that is being looked at is the number of e-cigarette vendors in close distance to high schools, to see if easy access to sources of ecigarettes have a influence on a teenager’s risk of vaping.
Vaping among teenagers has become a growing issue, especially with the growth of stores that sell ecigarette products. Approximately 3.02 million high school students and 550,000 middle school students have reported currently using e-cigarettes, with roughly a third of them have reported using marijuana in the device.
A previous analysis looked at data just for Orange County, California, for the years 2019-2020, and found that the risk of vaping was associated with factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, parent’s education and free or reduced lunch program eligibility. We hope to add on to those results but instead we will be looking at the years 2010 to 2020, since California started their campaign to warn about the dangers of e-cigarettes in 2015. By looking at the five years before and after these efforts, Vu and colleagues hope to get a better idea of the effects of these efforts. This project will use its findings to present to community groups, leaders, and conferences, in hopes of informing the public on the widespread disparities of teenage vaping.
