Smoke-free workplace ballot campaigns: case studies from Missouri and lessons for policy and media advocacy.

Purpose: To assess the key components of smoke-free campaigns that may have influenced voting outcomes in three communities.

Design: Community case studies with content analysis of tobacco-related newspaper articles.

Setting: Three semiurban Missouri communities.

Interpersonal influence among public health leaders in the United States department of health and human services.

Background: In public health, interpersonal influence has been identified as an important factor in the spread of health information, and in understanding and changing health behaviors. However, little is known about influence in public health leadership. Influence is important in leadership settings, where public health professionals contribute to national policy and practice agendas.

Demographic and geographic differences in exposure to secondhand smoke in Missouri workplaces, 2007-2008.

Introduction: African Americans, Hispanics, service and blue-collar workers, and residents of rural areas are among those facing higher rates of workplace secondhand smoke exposure in states without smokefree workplace laws. Consequently, these groups also experience more negative health effects resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. The objective of this study was to examine disparities in workplace secondhand smoke exposure in a state without a comprehensive statewide smokefree workplace law and to use this information in considering a statewide law.

Tobacco coverage in print media: the use of timing and themes by tobacco control supporters and opposition before a failed tobacco tax initiative.

Objective: Tobacco control policies gained ground nationwide in 2006, with voters in nine states approving legislation to strengthen clean indoor air policies and increase tobacco excise taxes. Despite having the second lowest cigarette tax rate in the nation, Missouri was unsuccessful in passing its 2006 ballot initiative to raise the tax. An important way to encourage health-related policy change such as increasing tobacco taxes is through media coverage of tobacco issues.

Forty years of secondhand smoke research: the gap between discovery and delivery.

Context: Public health initiatives often focus on the discovery of risk factors associated with disease and death. Although this is an important step in protecting public health, recently the field has recognized that it is critical to move along the continuum from discovery of risk factors to delivery of interventions, and to improve the quality and speed of translating scientific discoveries into practice.

Evidence Acquisition: To understand how public health problems move from discovery to delivery, citation network analysis was used to examine 1877 articles on secondhand smoke (SHS) published between 1965 and 2005.