REGION : Stop-Smoking Study Is Targeting Latinos

Hilda Lopez is a quitter, and she likes it that way.

“Every day that goes by that I don’t smoke, I count as a victory,” said Lopez, 47, who quit after 30 years of smoking a pack a day.

In April, Lopez volunteered to participate in a stop-smoking study at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, where a team of researchers has been targeting Latinos--who are often overlooked in such studies--to help them kick the habit.

Like Lopez, 20 others receive counseling and a skin patch that may or may not contain nicotine. The purpose of the study is to determine whether using a nicotine patch is vital in helping smokers quit.

The project reaches out to Latinos who have not yet integrated into mainstream society and who typically do not have access to smoking-cessation programs. The 10-week program, funded through a $90,000 grant from nicotine patch manufacturer Marion Merell Dow, is being offered to 100 patients through spring, 1996.

“Every other ethnic group has been taking advantage of programs like this, but Latinos have been left out,” said Ron Zuniga, a health education assistant for the Research and Education Institute at the medical center. “This research study will help Latinos in the short term, and all smokers in general in the long run.”

A Huntington Park native, Zuniga has focused on recruiting research subjects from the Southeast region because of its high density of Latinos. The institute is running ads on Spanish-language radio stations and in newspapers to attract more subjects.

Huntington Park city officials have made the issue a priority. A year ago, then-Mayor Ric Loya declared a health crisis in the city after a state Department of Health report stated that Huntington Park--which is 90% Latino--had the eighth-highest number of smoking deaths in the state. In March, the city helped open a branch of the American Cancer Society.

The report said the city had the 16th-highest rate statewide for males, 593 deaths per 100,000 people a year, and the 11th-highest rate for females, 261 deaths per 100,000.

South Gate, with an 86% Latino population, also made the list of the top 25 California cities in smoking-related deaths--555 per 100,000 people for males and 255 per 100,000 for females.

Studies have found that Latinos often become smokers when they adapt to mainstream American culture, Zuniga said.

Although the overall prevalence of cigarette smoking is lower for Latinos than for whites and African Americans, smoking behavior among Latinos becomes more similar to that of whites with increasing levels of acculturation, according to a 1994 report from the American Public Health Assn.

“There’s been a great realization that Latino smokers need the same level of intervention to quit [as] other ethnic groups,” said Mitchell Nides, director of the research project. The only similar project in the nation is at the University of Arizona, he said.

Each patient is randomly given patches that either contain nicotine or are placebos with no nicotine. The patches are replaced every day. Neither the patients nor the Harbor-UCLA researchers know which patch a patient is given. At the end of the study, the information is forwarded to the manufacturer, who tells patients which patch they used.

Patients are not charged for the patches, which cost $3 each. In fact, participants receive $10 per visit to cover their transportation costs.

But regardless of which patch is used, patients are guaranteed that they will quit smoking.

They are warned of the discomforts of giving up cigarettes: difficulty concentrating, anxiety, irritability, increased appetite, an upset stomach.

“Despite the discomfort,” said Lopez, “I knew I was doing something good for myself.”

Information: (310) 222-8222.