PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Shawn Ralston
AU  - Nicole Kellett
AU  - Robert L. Williams
AU  - Cheryl Schmitt
AU  - Charles Q. North
TI  - Practice-based Assessment of Tobacco Usage in Southwestern Primary Care Patients: A Research Involving Outpatient Settings Network (RIOS Net) Study
AID  - 10.3122/jabfm.2007.02.060018
DP  - 2007 Mar 01
TA  - The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine
PG  - 174--180
VI  - 20
IP  - 2
4099  - http://www.jabfm.org/content/20/2/174.short
4100  - http://www.jabfm.org/content/20/2/174.full
SO  - J Am Board Fam Med2007 Mar 01; 20
AB  - Purpose: Primary care clinicians rely, perhaps erroneously, on general population-based data about risk factors to help form their strategies for allocating time in the brief primary care encounter. We conducted a case study using rates of tobacco usage among people presenting for primary care to explore comparability to general population-based rates.Methods: Clinicians in RIOS Net, a practice-based research network, gathered data on tobacco use for all patients presenting during a 2-week period. We compared those data to population-based data by gender and ethnicity.Results: Ninety-one primary care clinicians reported data on 2442 patients. Primary care smoking rates differed in important ways from general population-based rates. Hispanic women smoked at more than twice the national population-based rate (25% vs 12%). Youth smoked at higher rates as well, particularly young Native American men.Conclusions: Patients seen in primary care differ in important ways in rates and patterns of tobacco usage when compared with rates reported in population-based surveys. These differences could have important implications for preventive care within the context of multiple competing demands in the primary care encounter.