Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City, August 2014
Tobacco use, including cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco, are major public health burdens that needlessly shorten thousands of lives each year, while severely increasing fiscal strains on the American health care system. Kansas and Missouri together see nearly 14,000 deaths each year from smoking and nearly 2,000 more deaths from second-hand smoke. Tobacco-related health care expenses for Kansans and Missourians top $3 billion annually - including $700 million in Medicaid expenses each year.
While these negative effects of tobacco are well documented, perhaps the chemical nature of cigarettes is more sobering. The average cigarette contains a poisonous mix of over 7,000 chemicals - hundreds of which are toxic and about 70 can cause cancer. At the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City, we’ve been proud to fund projects aimed at tobacco prevention and cessation, as well as efforts to reduce smoking in public places.
Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City, August 2014
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, May 15, 2013
Clean Air KC
KHI, Jan. 23, 2013
Proposition B Summary:
Relating to Tobacco Product Taxation
Taylor & Francis Online, April 2012
Issues in Missouri Health Care 2011: Issue briefs exploring the challenges facing Missourian's and their health care system. Developed by Health Management Associates and funded by the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City and the Missouri Foundation for Health.
Working statewide to reduce tobacco use and eliminate secondhand smoke for all Missourians through education and policy change.
Assisting Kansans in avoiding the negative health and economic impact of tobacco use.
Prepared by Jessica Hembree, HCF Program Officer.
Supports smoke-free air ordinances, laws and policies in the metro area and the state; as well as a comprehensive approach to reducing tobacco use and exposure to second hand smoke.
Public News Service, January 3, 2010
Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City, August 2014
A Report of the Surgeon General, 2014
American Lung Association, 2012
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, May 2012
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 5, 2010
Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights
Institute of Medicine, October 2009
(School health promotion programs); Preventing Chronic Disease: Public Health Research, Practice and Policy. April 2007.
City of Pueblo, Colorado; Center for Diseases Control and Prevention
St. Louis Today, November 26, 2010
US Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2010
America’s first anti-smoking and nonsmokers’ rights organization.
Proposition B Summary:
Relating to Tobacco Product Taxation