• DHEC Home
• Health
• Environment
• Regulatory
• Disclaimer/Privacy
• Contact Us

South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control - www.scdhec.gov

• A to Z Subject Listing
• Certificate of Need
• Certification
• Community Health & Chronic Disease Prevention
• Disease Control
• Emergency Medical Services
• Environmental Health
• GIS
• Healthcare Professional's Quick Reference
• Health Facilities Construction
• Health Licensing
• Home Health Services
• Laboratory
• Maternal, Child Health
• Minority Health
• Office of Primary Care
• Public Health Statistics & Information Services
• Professional Services
• Radiological Health
• Regulatory Information
• School Health Services

IDENTIFICATION AND ELIMINATION OF HEALTH DISPARITIES AMONG POPULATIONS

Mothers Eliminating Secondhand Smoke

A new and exciting campaign to address second hand smoke, M.E.S.S. (Mothers Eliminating Secondhand Smoke) is being led in partnership with other faith-based organizations/institution, health and human service organizations, state agencies, and interested citizens. The overarching goal of M.E.S.S. is to ensure the overall well-being of women and children by creating voluntary smoke-free homes and smoke-free vehicles.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids reveals the toll of tobacco in South Carolina remains at a high level. It reports statewide, 36% (85,000) of all high school students smoke, and 10,600 kids under age 18 become new daily smokers each year. Approximately 240,000 kids are exposed to secondhand smoke at home, while 21.3 million packs of cigarettes are purchased or smoked by kids each year. It is anticipated that 90,000 kids now under 18 and alive in South Carolina will ultimately die prematurely from smoking.

According to Women and Smoking: a Report of the Surgeon General, smoking is a woman's issue, and that environmental tobacco smoke is a cause of lung cancer among women who have never smoked and coronary heart disease. Second hand smoke exposure affects everyone, but children are especially vulnerable and their exposure is always involuntary. Children exposed to second hand smoke are at an increased risk for medical complications such as developmental lung delays, asthmatic complications, respiratory tract infections and even SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)to name a few. On April 27, 2004, the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids issued Mother's Day Smoking Data which indicated South Carolina having 7,000 pregnant smokers and 1,500 children who have lost their moms due to smoking.

VISION

Voluntary smoke-free homes and smoke-free vehicles will be created for the purpose of ensuring the overall well-being of women and children in South Carolina.

GOALS

1. Establish a statewide steering committee representative of all faith-based organizations/institutions for the purpose of engaging and mobilizing local maternal support groups.
2. Establish local level maternal support groups that are representative of all faith-based organizations/institutions.
3. Develop appropriate second-hand smoke educational modules for duplication and implementation at the local level.
4. Partner, link and advocate with health and human service agencies, organizations and community groups to support the adoption of model policies and other on-going tobacco prevention efforts.

M.E.S.S. is sponsored by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, the South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative, South Carolina Primary Health Care Association and the American Cancer Society.

Read the latest edition of the Mothers Eliminating Secondhand Smoke Newsletter here (pdf)

Women & Pregnancy

Despite doctors’ warnings, 12 to 20 percent of American women smoke when they’re pregnant. And the results are saddening.

Smoking during pregnancy has been linked to 10 percent of all infant deaths and can impair fetal brain and nervous system development. Babies who are born to women who smoke are three times more likely to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and are typically born underweight. What some mothers don’t realize is that an underweight baby can go on to suffer more health problems throughout its entire life than a baby born within the normal weight range.

Smokers are also 66 percent more likely to experience a problematic delivery with more severe complications, more intensive care required and higher direct medical costs. It’s also much more likely that a mother will experience preterm delivery and thus a premature infant.

Not pregnant yet but thinking about trying? Or have you just found out you’re expecting? Stop smoking now. Some studies indicate that women who quit smoking by the end of their first trimester reduce their unborn child’s risks to almost those of an infant whose mother never smoked to begin with. And if you’re trying to get pregnant, stub out the smoking. Cigarette smoking can cause reproductive problems before a woman even becomes pregnant. Studies show that smokers have more trouble conceiving; in fact, women who smoke are 50 percent less likely to conceive within the first twelve months of trying. And don’t think this only applies to the mother! More and more research is finding that the father’s smoking habits can have a direct effect on conception as well.

And remember that assuming you are able to quit during your conception and pregnancy, it’s equally important to make sure you don’t start your habit back up after your child is born. Secondhand smoke can be just as dangerous to young children as smoking during pregnancy. Make sure your kids come first.

Source: Smoke-Free Families
March of Dimes

First Breaths

In the fall of 2004, DHEC is collaborating with the South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative to bring Newberry Hospital a pilot program called First Breaths. First Breaths, which encourages new mothers to make all of their child’s breaths as important as its first, provides families with take-home information on the dangers of smoking around their infants.

Funded in part by the March of Dimes, First Breaths will give parents information on two of the most vital places they can keep smoke free – their home and their vehicle. Newberry Hospital will be able to offer each new mother a gift that includes tips on how to make homes and automobiles smoke free and will serve as a model for hospitals throughout the rest of South Carolina.

Newborns & Toddlers

In addition to warnings about the dangers of smoking during pregnancy, it’s important to understand that exposing newborns and infants to secondhand smoke can be just as deadly as smoking during the course of pregnancy. Babies exposed to secondhand smoke after birth are twice as likely as unexposed babies to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and infants whose mother smoked before and after their birth are at three to four times a greater risk of dying from SIDS. SIDS kills between 1,900 and 2,700 infants each year.

Smoking in front of young children can also hurt their growth. They are likely to have impaired lung growth, chronic coughing and wheezing and a lowered immune system, making them less capable of fighting off childhood diseases. Infants who are exposed to secondhand smoke in the home are also more likely to develop cavities and gum disease as they grow.

Source: Surgeon General’s Report, 2004

Asthmatic Kids & Adults

Over 20 million people, including 6.3 million children, have asthma in the United States. 12 million Americans had asthma attacks last year and the disease accounts for more than 10 million outpatient clinic visits and 2 million emergency room visits each year.

An estimated 200,000 to 1 million asthmatic children have their condition worsened by exposure to secondhand smoke. Children with asthma whose parents smoke have more frequent exacerbations and more severe symptoms and consequently, asthma sufferers miss more school because of chronic illness. During the last 20 years, school absence due to asthma has more than doubled. The CDC estimates that 14 million school days were missed due to asthma in 2000.

Secondhand smoke triggers asthmatic episodes through its irritancy effects. Smoke irritates the chronically inflamed bronchial passages, which are not the same passages affected by environmental triggers of asthma. Environmental factors like pet dander or pollen trigger episodes through allergenic effects. Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of secondhand smoke because their lungs are not fully developed, however, both adults and children who suffer from asthma are at particularly high risk from secondhand smoke.

According to the 2002 BRFSS Survey, 10 percent of South Carolinians have a healthy history of asthma and 5.8 percent of South Carolinians have suffered from an asthma attack in the last year. Annually, 204,000 adults and 77,000 children suffer from asthma in South Carolina. And increasingly, African Americans and Hispanics are beginning to experience a greater number of asthmatic attacks than their Caucasian counterparts.

Source: Asthma in South Carolina, DHEC; Asthma Facts, EPA; Asthma and Children Fact Sheet, American Lung Association

Hold Out the Lifeline

Many families in South Carolina are living in poor physical, mental and spiritual health. This poor health leads to poor academic performance, inadequate job skills, and poor coping ability. Poverty is most often the result. The family is the most important institution in America. A strong family provides stability, affection, order, and essential social and economic resources.

America has the highest divorce rate in the world. Almost half of all marriages end in divorce. In 2001, over one fourth of all babies born in South Carolina were to unmarried mothers. The Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS) has surveyed students in grades 8, 10, and 12, and found the use of alcohol and drugs corresponds with family structure. Children living with stepparents and single parent households were more likely to engage in substance abuse than those living with both biological parents.

Hold Out The Lifeline: A Mission to Families believes that the spiritual, cultural, and moral values of parents and other family members influence the lives of children; that a consistent and reliable support system of extended family, friends, and congregational members enables and reinforces positive family health; and that congregations partnering with health and human services agencies can promote family health and well-being.

Hold Out the Lifeline is a mission to help families. It assists and enables religious congregations and communities to work alone or with agencies and other organizations for the purpose of improving the physical, mental, social, educational, environmental, and spiritual wellbeing of families in South Carolina.

In January 1989, the South Carolina chapter of the March of Dimes, the Office of the Governor, and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) joined with communities of faith to sponsor a project called, “prenatal mission.” The purpose of the project was to train members of congregations as prenatal care advocates to help women overcome the barriers to prenatal care.

In 1990, the Prenatal Mission was renamed Hold Out the Lifeline: A Mission to Families, and now trains members to become family health advocates. Since then successful projects have focused on family health, transportation, public awareness, support groups, and community and economic development in addition to prenatal care.

Since then, Hold Out the Lifeline has established important working relationships with community development models like Healthy Communities, Turning Point, Shalom Zone, Putting Families First, Parish Nursing and the Carter Interfaith Resource Center and Faith and Health Consortium. The staff have fifteen years of faith and health experience and in 1998, Hold out the Lifeline: A Mission to Families received national recognition for setting high standards for faith and health community-based program evaluation.

To enter into a partnership with Hold Out the Lifeline: A Mission to Families, contact Dolores Scott at the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control at (803) 545-4467, or the South Carolina Primary Health Care Association at (803) 788-2778.

Older Americans

Research points to the fact that elderly smokers may lose their cognitive abilities, such as remembering, thinking and perceiving, more rapidly that elderly non-smokers, according to the American Academy of Neurology. When functions of daily life like short-term memory, time and place orientation, attention and calculation were compared year to year, smokers lost significantly more cognitive abilities that non-smokers their same age, even after adjustments were made for factors like education and history of stroke.

The elderly population in the United States is 12.4 percent and will experience significant growth in the upcoming years as the baby boom generation begins turning 65 in 2011. Smoking has become an important geriatric health issue as many elderly continue to smoke into their 70s and 80s despite knowing the health risks. Quitting smoking even after the age 65 improves cardiovascular functioning, pulmonary infections and the risk of lung and oropharyngeal cancers, hip fractures, osteoporosis and eye disease.

Of the top 16 causes of death among the elderly, a full half of them are caused by smoking. People who smoke past 65 are twice as likely to die each year as their nonsmoking peers. Depression is also more frequent among elderly smokers than nonsmokers.

Smoking has also been linked to interfering with many drug regimens. Since most elderly are taking several medications each day, they increase the risk of making a critical drug become ineffective in their system. On average, men who quit smoking at 65 years old add two years to their life expectancy while women add 3.7 years.

Source: Doctor’s Guide to the Internet; Southern Online Journal of Nursing Research

African-Americans, Hispanics and Other Minorities

Check out the South Carolina African American Tobacco Control Network (SCAATCN) to find out more information about tobacco and how it affects the African American community in South Carolina.

SC African American Tobacco Control Network
Dianne Wilson, Director
230 Scalybark Road
Summerville, SC 29485
Phone: (843) 871-9439
Fax: (843) 832-9802