Nanda, Tanmaya Kumar
India Abroad
07-09-2004
The first-ever study of tobacco habits among Indian Americans is now
underway in California, as part of a survey undertaken by the University of
California, Los Angeles in tandem with the Santa Clara county public health
department and the South Asian Network, a community organization based in
the Bay Area.
The state health department funds the research project out of a $5 million
payment it received as part of a tobacco settlement.
'Our research itself is to the tune of about $800,000,' said Dipa Shah,
project director for the California Asian Indian Tobacco Survey.
The principal investigator for the survey is Dr William McCarthy, adjunct
associate professor at the UCLA School of Public Health.
'Initially, we wanted to include the South Asian community since the
cultures are so similar, but the state health department wanted us to focus
on the Asian Indian population in the state,' Shah told India Abroad.
'Maybe they don't understand that fully.'
As it happened, the county public health department had a similar proposal
lined up. 'Instead of competing with each other, we thought it would better
to pool our resources,' Shah said.
The Indian-American community in the state, at about 315,000 according to
the 2000 Census, is the highest in the country. The telephone survey,
however, will be conducted among only 60,000 households, and will focus on
tobacco habits among the respondents, both users and non-users, as well as
attitudes to tobacco use.
'The selection of respondents is completely random,' Shah said. The names
of households to be called have been taken from a directory based on Indian
American-sounding surnames.
The data collection is expected to continue until the end of July, and the
final report will be sent to the state department of health in August.
The results of the survey will be broken down into sub-sections by income
or regional Indian ethnicity for the state to target them more effectively.
'It is of particular importance to the community,' Shah pointed out, 'since
Indian-Americans have been shown to be at five times higher risk of heart
disease than Americans.'
The survey also goes beyond the traditional use of tobacco in that it
includes consumption of not cigarettes alone but paan, bidis, gutka and
paan masala.
Shah, who has a master's in public health from UCLA and has worked on heart
disease in Asian Americans, points out that Indians (on the subcontinent)
have the highest incidence of oral cancer anywhere in the world, thanks
largely to widespread addiction to paan and other variants of chewable
tobacco.
That addiction could in some limited form be part of the community's
make-up here as well. Shah said it is possible to buy gutka and paan masala
in some Indian grocery stores in California, while bidis are sold at liquor
stores.
Shah hopes the study will prompt other states that have large Asian Indian
populations, such as Texas or New Jersey, to undertake similar exercises,
since they have different demographics and likely different tobacco
consumption patterns.
Article copyright India Abroad Publications, Inc.
V.XXX
India Abroad
07-09-2004
The first-ever study of tobacco habits among Indian Americans is now
underway in California, as part of a survey undertaken by the University of
California, Los Angeles in tandem with the Santa Clara county public health
department and the South Asian Network, a community organization based in
the Bay Area.
The state health department funds the research project out of a $5 million
payment it received as part of a tobacco settlement.
'Our research itself is to the tune of about $800,000,' said Dipa Shah,
project director for the California Asian Indian Tobacco Survey.
The principal investigator for the survey is Dr William McCarthy, adjunct
associate professor at the UCLA School of Public Health.
'Initially, we wanted to include the South Asian community since the
cultures are so similar, but the state health department wanted us to focus
on the Asian Indian population in the state,' Shah told India Abroad.
'Maybe they don't understand that fully.'
As it happened, the county public health department had a similar proposal
lined up. 'Instead of competing with each other, we thought it would better
to pool our resources,' Shah said.
The Indian-American community in the state, at about 315,000 according to
the 2000 Census, is the highest in the country. The telephone survey,
however, will be conducted among only 60,000 households, and will focus on
tobacco habits among the respondents, both users and non-users, as well as
attitudes to tobacco use.
'The selection of respondents is completely random,' Shah said. The names
of households to be called have been taken from a directory based on Indian
American-sounding surnames.
The data collection is expected to continue until the end of July, and the
final report will be sent to the state department of health in August.
The results of the survey will be broken down into sub-sections by income
or regional Indian ethnicity for the state to target them more effectively.
'It is of particular importance to the community,' Shah pointed out, 'since
Indian-Americans have been shown to be at five times higher risk of heart
disease than Americans.'
The survey also goes beyond the traditional use of tobacco in that it
includes consumption of not cigarettes alone but paan, bidis, gutka and
paan masala.
Shah, who has a master's in public health from UCLA and has worked on heart
disease in Asian Americans, points out that Indians (on the subcontinent)
have the highest incidence of oral cancer anywhere in the world, thanks
largely to widespread addiction to paan and other variants of chewable
tobacco.
That addiction could in some limited form be part of the community's
make-up here as well. Shah said it is possible to buy gutka and paan masala
in some Indian grocery stores in California, while bidis are sold at liquor
stores.
Shah hopes the study will prompt other states that have large Asian Indian
populations, such as Texas or New Jersey, to undertake similar exercises,
since they have different demographics and likely different tobacco
consumption patterns.
Article copyright India Abroad Publications, Inc.
V.XXX
