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Are homeless transitional shelters receptive to environmental tobacco control interventions?
  1. Lisa Arangua1,
  2. William J McCarthy2,
  3. Rebecca Moskowitz3,
  4. Lillian Gelberg4,
  5. Tony Kuo5
  1. 1Department of Family Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA
  2. 2Department of Health Services, University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health, Los Angeles, California, USA
  3. 3University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, Los Angeles, California, USA
  4. 4Department of Family Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
  5. 5County of Los Angeles, Department of Public Health, Department of Family Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
  1. Correspondence to:
 Dr T Kuo
 10880 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 1800, Los Angeles, California 90024-4142, USA; tkuo{at}mednet.ucla.edu

https://doi.org/10.1136/tc.2006.018697

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    Despite a smoking prevalence approaching 70% among homeless adults in the US,1,2 little is known about ways to intervene on smoking behaviour in this marginalised population. Tobacco control advocates point to marketing by the tobacco industry and the pervasiveness and social acceptance of tobacco use in homeless settings as barriers to promoting effective cessation of smoking and smoke-free environments in this vulnerable population.3 They maintain that homeless service providers continue to hold apparently common assumptions that tobacco is a resource and that their clients have higher priority needs than to quit smoking.3–5 Recent studies, however, have begun to challenge these assumptions.2–6 In a series of focus groups and interviews exploring tobacco use behaviours among the homeless,2 up to 76% of homeless persons interviewed reported an intention to quit smoking in the next 6 months. Recent investigations in tobacco, alcohol and drug addiction have also demonstrated that rehabilitation programmes for misusers are commonly more effective when risky …

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    Footnotes

    • Competing interests: None declared.