Tagged: smoking

The University of Missouri has announced that MU’s campus will become 100 percent smoke–free earlier than planned. The smoke-free date has been moved up from January 2014 to July next year.

The University of Missouri announced Thursdsay that MU’s campus will become 100 percent smoke–free earlier than planned. The smoke-free date has been moved up from January 2014 to July next year. KBIA’s Maddie Heidenreich reports.

For the second year in a row, the March of Dimes has given Missouri a grade of “C” in its annual state rankings of premature birth rates. Factors including maternal smoking, lack of access to health care, and obesity are to blame.

The Director of Newborn Medicine at St. Louis Children's Hospital, Dr. F. Sessions Cole, calls preterm birth a major problem for our region.

The Jefferson City City Council has taken on a debate about smoking in public housing.  A subcommittee of the City Council has announced a special meeting to discuss smoking regulations in public housing and whether the council has any power to change them. Several citizens from public housing and Smokefree Jefferson City asked the council earlier this month to strengthen regulations on smoking in public housing.

A new smoking ban was passed in Hannibal after much debate between both city officials and community members.

Missouri has one of the highest smoking rates in the nation -- at 21 percent, it's double the rate in states like Utah and California. But some segments of the population smoke even more. In this week's Health & Wealth update, I talk with MU researchers who have found that the smoking rate among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Missourians is much higher than in the population at large.