Program helps low-income smokers kick habit, By Richard Knox, February 15, 2010, National Public Radio: “The overall U.S. smoking rate is half what it was in the 1960s. But this isn’t true among low-income Americans: They’re still smoking as much as everyone was a generation ago. Massachusetts health officials say it doesn’t have to be this way. They say they’ve found a way to get even the most hard-core smokers to quit. The program is designed to help people like Sondra Pasquine. Pasquine, 24, works as a nursing home aide, and she wants to stop smoking. Through the Massachusetts program, she has a smoking cessation counselor, nurse Allison Diamond of the Dorchester House health center. At a recent counseling session, Diamond pushed Pasquine to articulate what she doesn’t like about smoking…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty