Smoking Patterns within the Missouri LGBTQ Community

Audience: Attendees interested in health disparities and LGBTQ tobacco control. Key Points: As the largest sample of LGBTQ participants compiled, to date, we are able to conduct subgroup analysis by age group, race and educational attainment. Analysis of 6537 self-identified LGBTQ individuals’ beliefs and behaviors about smoking and smoking policy will be presented. Briefly, we found an overall 38% smoking rate in the LGBTQ community but considerable variation by race, education, age and level of smoking (light, moderate, heavy every day smoker and some day smoker) exists and given our large dataset we have the unique capacity to describe these. Educational Experience: This presentation will describe the methods used to obtain information on 6537 self-identified LGBTQ participant. Characterizing each subgroups’ smoking behavior and attitudes towards tobacco control policy allows for a better understanding of this group for subsequent intervention. Our data Include lesbians =1681, gay=1867, male bisexual=237, female bisexual=600, transgender=277, and other=395. Benefits: Understanding smoking behavior by LGBTQ subgroups, as well as other characteristics, such as age, race, educational level, intention-to-quit status, support of smoke free policies will contribute to developing appropriate tobacco interventions. The audience will also be able to learn a successful method of survey collection for this hard to reach population.