Cigarette smoking among Chinese, Vietnamese, and Hispanics--California, 1989-1991.

Although cigarette smoking causes 434,000 premature deaths annually in the United States (1), information characterizing smoking behaviors generally lacks specificity for racial/ethnic groups and subgroups (2). To characterize smoking and other risk behaviors more fully for program planning efforts at the local level, three California communities and the California Department of Health Services developed culturally adapted versions of CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). These surveys were administered to selected Chinese (3), Vietnamese (4), or Hispanic populations in California. This report summarizes information about smoking from these surveys during 1989-1991.