Tobacco

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.

Resources

Regional

  • 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

Infographics

National

  • 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.

Misc Reports

News

Regional

  • KCUR, Aug. 7, 2015
    2015-08-07 09:53
  • KHI News Service, July 16, 2015
    2015-07-21 09:30
  • KHI News Service, July 1, 2015
    2015-07-02 11:19
  • Flatland KC, June 24, 2015
    2015-06-25 11:04
  • The Kansas City Star, May 15, 2015
    2015-05-18 10:08
  • Kaiser Health news, April 14th, 2015
    2015-04-14 10:36