Grant about to end for program aimed at reducing secondhand smoke

WEST PLAINS, Mo. -- Health officials in southern Missouri are looking for money to extend a program aimed at getting parents to stop smoking around their children.

The ABCs of Secondhand Smoke program is currently paid for by a three-year, $300,000 grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health. That money runs out at the end of April.

The program, managed by the Community Partnership of the Ozarks, is free to families served by Head Start in Douglas, Oregon, Wright, Shannon and Howell counties.

"This is a good cause," said Michael Carter, a community policy specialist with the state's Bureau of Health Promotion. "Rural counties tend not to have the same level of prevention resources we have in Greene County or in more-urban areas."

It would take about $125,000 to run the program for another year, program director Sylvia Persky said, but state funding for tobacco education is harder to come by.

Missouri is among five states that provide no money for programs to encourage children not to smoke, according to a report released in December by a coalition of public health organizations.

The report noted that Missouri collected nearly $246 million combined that year from the 1998 settlement with tobacco companies and tobacco taxes, but spent none of it on prevention efforts.

The state gets some money for smoking prevention from the federal Centers for Disease Control.

The southwest Missouri program appears to be working, too.

In the 2005-2006 school year, 290 parents participated, and many reported changes in their smoking habits, Persky said.

Some reduced or quit smoking in their homes and cars or stopped others from doing so, she said. Some cut down on smoking anywhere, and some gave it up entirely.

"My husband is a doctor, and it's been eye-opening for him because people actually say, 'We didn't know that smoking causes my kid's asthma,"' said Howell County Head Start volunteer Letitia Lewandowski, a nurse. "He realized doctors are not telling patients about that, so he has started educating the doctors to make patients aware of this."

The ABCS of Secondhand Smoke program involves three sessions for parents, who are told about the dangers of secondhand smoke and given tips on changing their smoking behavior. Three separate sessions for children also cover health issues and teach ways to ask adults not to smoke when children are around.

Last year, the program received the Exemplary Substance Abuse Prevention Program Award from the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors and the National Prevention Network.