Smoking patterns among rural elderly.

Health promotion among the elderly has been shown to produce positive outcomes despite widespread belief that the elderly will not benefit. Helping the elderly to quit smoking has immediate and significant health and economic benefits. This epidemiological study examined the tobacco use status of elderly living in rural areas primarily because of their reduced accessibility to group cessation programs and their relative isolation. The authors found that although a large proportion of rural elderly visited their primary care provider at least once during the previous year and had received advice to quit smoking, only about half of those receiving this advice had actually made a serious attempt to quit for at least one day. Persons living in this rural mid-south state also have higher point prevalence rates of smoking for both men and women as compared to national data. Use of spit tobacco, cigars and pipes is also practiced on an occasional basis by some of the men in the sample. Future research should be focused on improving the cessation counseling methods used with the rural elderly tobacco user and on assisting them in their maintenance efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]