Health Topic: Cancer Screening
The use of tobacco represents the second-highest cause of preventable deaths for American Indian and Alaska Native people. Smoking rates in many communities are almost twice the national average. Tobacco users who quit tobacco, on average, have longer and healthier lives than those who do not. Even a long-time smoker can significantly lower their chance of heart disease and other complications by quitting. Advice from a health care provider and a tobacco cessation counseling program can help smokers quit. Smoking cessation treatments have been found to be safe and effective. In addition, tobacco cessation programs are more cost-effective than other common prevention interventions.

What is the GPRA measure?
The GPRA measure is the percentage of IHS AI/AN patients that use tobacco who received tobacco cessation intervention during the year.

How is IHS doing?
The United States long-term goal is for 80.0% of adult smokers aged 18 years and older attempted to stop smoking in the past 12 months by the year 2020 (Healthy People 2020). The 2012 IHS goal was to achieve the rate of 30.0% for the proportion of tobacco-using patients who receive tobacco cessation intervention. IHS exceeded the goal by reaching 35.2%. The bars on the graph below show that IHS has increased the rate from 12% in 2006 to 35.2% in 2012. However, beginning in 2010 refusals was removed from the rates. So, the 2006 to 2009 rates cannot be compared with the 2010 to 2012 rates.

View a table of this chart's data.

To see how IHS is doing on this measure at the Area (regional) levels, click here.