A nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism

Health Issues Poll shows NKyians’ views; majority favor statewide smoking ban, report good health


The Kentucky Health Issues Poll (KHIP), conducted by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky and Cincinnati’s Interact for Health, provides a snapshot of regional views — including Northern Kentucky’s, on health issues.

The data, now available online, are broken down into five regions: Northern Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky, Greater Lexington, Greater Louisville, and Western Kentucky. Each regional report outlines respondents’ answers to various health-related KHIP questions and then compares regional responses to statewide findings.

“These reports offer regional snapshots of Kentuckians’ views on various health issues,” said Susan Zepeda, President/CEO of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. “Local perspectives on key health issues can be particularly useful for policymakers and health officials, especially those working on local community health initiatives.”

Toddler girl laughing while doctor examines

Toddler girl laughing while doctor examines

Among the issues examined by KHIP: views on a statewide smoke-free law, expansion of dating violence protections, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), school lunch policies, and insurance status.

Statewide KHIP results indicate the majority of Kentucky adults favor a statewide smoke-free law, support tobacco free school campus policies, favor the school nutrition standards and want mandatory physical education time at school.

Additionally, KHIP found Kentuckians strongly support the decision to expand Medicaid, have heard about the state’s insurance marketplace called kynect and generally do not eat the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables in their diet.

The poll was conducted October 8-November 6, 2014, by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati. A random sample of 1,597 adults from throughout Kentucky was interviewed by telephone, including landlines and cell phones.

Key differences by region include:

· Western Kentucky: residents were less likely to have been offered help or counseling, from a doctor or nurse, to stop smoking.

· Greater Louisville: adults were more likely to say it is easy to purchase healthy foods in their neighborhood and less likely to have been offered help to quit smoking.

· Greater Lexington: adults were more likely to rate the conditions of their neighborhood sidewalks and shoulders as “excellent” or “very good.”

· Northern Kentucky: adults were more likely to report eating the daily amounts of fruits and vegetables and less likely to know about the state’s insurance marketplace, kynect.

· Eastern Kentucky: adults were more likely to have been offered help to quit smoking and less likely to rate their neighborhood as being a safe place to walk, jog or bike.

The Northern Kentucky findings report the views expressed by respondents from the Northern Kentucky Area Development District. About 10% of Kentuckians live in this 8-county region.

In general, responses from Northern Kentucky residents were comparable to the
state as a whole. Like the statewide results, in Northern Kentucky:

• The majority of adults favored a statewide, smoke-free law (63%)
• A slim majority favored adding an excise tax to e-cigarettes (54%)
• A majority said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should regulate the
sale and marketing of e-cigarettes (61%)
• A substantial majority favored expanding the Kentucky law on domestic
violence protection orders to include dating partners (81%)
• Respondents were nearly evenly divided on the idea of taxing soda and other
sugary drinks to pay for school nutrition and physical activity programs
• A majority favored adding a warning label to soda and other sugary drinks (65%)
• About 1 in 10 Northern Kentucky adults aged 18 to 64 were uninsured (15%)
• A majority reported having a usual and appropriate source of healthcare (79%)
• One in 3 had trouble paying medical bills in the past 12 months (33%)
• About 4 in 10 reported a favorable opinion about the Affordable Care Act (39%)

There were a few key differences in Northern Kentucky as compared with the rest
of the state. Adults in Northern Kentucky were more likely to:

• Rate their child’s school lunch as nutritious
• Communicate with their doctor electronically via text, email or a website
• Know a friend or family member who has experienced problems because of
heroin use
• Report “excellent” or “very good” health

From the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky


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3 Comments

  1. harleyrider1978 says:

    The latest study on HPV and lung cancer:
    Correlation between squamous cell carcinoma of the lung and human papillomavirus infection and the relationship to expression of p53 and p16. X Fan, K Yu, J Wu, J Shao, L Zhu, J Zhang. Tumour Biol. 2014 Dec 28 [Epub ahead of print]. 128 adenocarcinomas and 134 squamous cell carcinomas in Shanghai. “The rate of HPV infection in SQC cases was significantly higher than in ADC cases (12.69 versus 3.91 %). Females with SQC had a significantly higher rate of HPV infection compared to males with SQC (18.75 versus 7.14 %, p?=?0.044). HPV infection was correlated with gender and age in SQC but not with the degree of tumor differentiation, TNM stage, or smoking.”

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25544708

    And don’t turn up your nose just because it’s not 100% of lung cancer caused by HPV. Remember the supposed smoking-related mechanism the anti-smokers peddle (benzo(a)pyrene diol epoxide-DNA adducts at hot spot codons at p53 in lung cells) could only pertain to about 7% or less of lung cancers.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16948683

    7 % or less would explain why so few smokers get LC to start with! LC is a very rare disease even in smokers where 2% or less of life long smokers ever get LC..
    ………………………….

    How oxygen in the air could trigger lung cancer: Rates of the disease found to decrease at higher altitudes.
    US researchers suggest way our bodies process oxygen is potentially carcinogenic.
    Free radicals in body can cause damage to cell structures and DNA, which in turn can trigger cancer.
    Link between elevation and lung cancer not seen with breast, prostate or bowel cancer.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2909046/How-oxygen-air-trigger-lung-cancer-Rates-disease-decrease-higher-altitudes.html#ixzz3OojufPbZ.

    ………………………..
    Lung and Bronchus. Invasive Cancer Incidence Rates and 95% Confidence Intervals by Age and Race and Ethnicity, United States (Table 3.15.1.1M) *†‡

    Rates are per 100,000 persons. Rates are per 100,000 persons.

    Note the age where LC is found…………..OLD AGE group incidence hits the 500/100,000 at age 75-85

    AGE it seems is the deciding factor……….

    http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/uscs/… Cancer Sites Combined&Year=2010&Site=Lung and Bronchus&SurveyInstanceID=1

  2. harleyrider1978 says:

    JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS”
    7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18
    November 2004.

    http://web.archive.org/web/20090412022844/http://cot.food.gov.uk/pdfs/cotstatementtobacco0409?hc_location=ufi

    “5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke – induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease.”

    In other words … our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can’t even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact … we don’t even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.

    The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory.

  3. harleyrider1978 says:

    OSHA also took on the passive smoking fraud and this is what came of it:

    Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Third Edition

    http://www.nap.edu/catalog/13163/reference-manual-on-scientific-evidence-third-edition

    This sorta says it all

    These limits generally are based on assessments of health risk and calculations of concentrations that are associated with what the regulators believe to be negligibly small risks. The calculations are made after first identifying the total dose of a chemical that is safe (poses a negligible risk) and then determining the concentration of that chemical in the medium of concern that should not be exceeded if exposed individuals (typically those at the high end of media contact) are not to incur a dose greater than the safe one.

    So OSHA standards are what is the guideline for what is acceptable ”SAFE LEVELS”

    OSHA SAFE LEVELS

    All this is in a small sealed room 9×20 and must occur in ONE HOUR.

    For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes.

    “For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes.

    “Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.

    Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up.

    “For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes.

    For arsenic 2 million 500,000 smokers at one time.

    The same number of cigarettes required for the other so called chemicals in shs/ets will have the same outcomes.

    So, OSHA finally makes a statement on shs/ets :

    Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)…It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded.” -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec’y, OSHA.

    Why are their any smoking bans at all they have absolutely no validity to the courts or to science!

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