American Indian internet cigarette sales: another avenue for selling tobacco products.

A study conducted by the University of Minnesota found that cigarettes can be purchased on American Indian-owned Internet sites for about one fifth of the price at grocery stores, making this a more convenient, lower-priced, and appealing method of purchasing cigarettes. Researchers and educators are challenged to address this new marketing ploy and to discover ways to curb rising smoking rates in American Indian communities.

Utilizing traditional storytelling to promote wellness in American Indian communities.

Utilizing storytelling to transmit educational messages is a traditional pedagogical method practiced by many American Indian tribes. American Indian stories are effective because they present essential ideas and values in a simple, entertaining form. Different story characters show positive and negative behaviors.

Recruitment of American Indians and Alaska Natives into clinical trials.

Challenges in recruiting American Indians and Alaska Natives into cancer clinical trials are addressed in this article. Researchers, health care providers, and American Indian and Alaska Native patients face significant communication barriers when prevention or treatment trials are designed or implemented. For researchers, the challenges lie in understanding the cultural distinctiveness of individual tribes, coping with the family orientation of Indian subjects, dealing with the lack of standardized research measures, and defining the subject's pathway in seeking and obtaining healing and health care services.

Characteristics of American Indian women cigarette smokers: prevalence and cessation status.

A high rate of cigarette smoking is documented among the American Indian population in California, but data on Indian women smokers have not been widely studied. This paper reports on a survey conducted in a smoking cessation project implemented and evaluated as part of a National Cancer Institute (NCI) cooperative agreement. Characteristics of Indian women smokers are presented and cessation status is examined.

Prevalence of smoking among adult American Indian clinic users in northern California.

Background: The American Indian Cancer Control Project is a 5-year program funded by the National Cancer Institute designed to promote smoking cessation among adult Indians living in Northern California. This article describes the result of our smoking prevalence survey. Our Indian-specific program combines the physician's anti-smoking message with the efforts of Indian Community Health Representatives, who have access to the Indian patients' families and communities.