��οresearchers receive $1.76 million to tackle Indigenous tobacco use, lung cancer

A team led by ��οresearchers Robert Schwartz and Michael Chaiton has received a $1.76 million grant from the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases to reduce commercial tobacco use and prevent chronic lung disease in Canadian Indigenous communities.

“Smoking cigarettes is one of the worst things you can do to your health and is a major risk factor for all lung diseases,” said Schwartz, executive director of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit and professor of public health policy at U of T's Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Through the study, researchers will collaborate with 13 Indigenous communities to support the development of culturally appropriate tobacco interventions to reflect socioeconomic, cultural and political influences.

About 18 per cent of Canadians smoke cigarettes, but in the First Nations, Inuit and Métis populations, the rates are 35.8 per cent, 59.8 per cent and 33 per cent respectively. The high rates of commercial tobacco use in Indigenous populations have led to a variety of health issues, lower life expectancy than the general Canadian population and higher rates of tobacco-related death.

“Working together with communities, we hope the study will help close the very large gap in the relative health burden experienced by Aboriginal as compared to non-Aboriginal people in Canada,” said Schwartz, who is also a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Robert Schwartz

��������οresearchers receive $1.76 million to tackle Indigenous tobacco use, lung cancer

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��οresearchers receive $1.76 million to tackle Indigenous tobacco use, lung cancer