Among African-Americans who smoke, 80 percent smoke menthol cigarettes.
Marketing? Cultural influences? Biology?All of the above, says Dr. Mark Clanton, chief medical director of the American Cancer Society's High Plains division, which includes Texas. Clanton was in Fort Worth on Friday as part of a conference at the University of North Texas Health Science Center that examined disparities in health status among different ethnic populations."We need to think in more complex ways about health disparity reduction," Clanton said.For example, for years it was assumed that African-Americans favored menthol-flavored tobacco because young people smoked what they saw parents or peers smoking, said Clanton, who is African-American. Then research showed that blacks, as well as some Asian groups, tend to be particularly sensitive to bitter-tasting compounds, and that menthol softens that bitterness.Clanton, a member of the Food and Drug Administration's tobacco products advisory council, sees a similar challenge curtailing a rising smoking rate among young people."Part of that is related to the fact that that younger group is disconnected from traditional sources of information about health. I would wager that the Internet and Facebook is not really teaching them a whole lot about why smoking a cigarette, menthol or otherwise, is bad."That has led the cancer society to consider changing how it gets information to young people, "including using social media and networking."Jim Fuquay, 817-390-7552Twitter: @jimfuquay