Health District gets $14.6 million from stimulus to fight smoking

By Kyle B. Hansen

Friday, March 19, 2010 | 4:24 p.m.

The Southern Nevada Health District will receive a $14.6 million grant to fund its Tobacco Control Program, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday.

The grant is one of 44 that will be funded with $372.8 million in federal stimulus money.

Southern Nevada’s portion will go toward continuing and expanding work the health district has done to keep people from smoking and to help smokers quit, officials said.

More than 84 percent of funds will go to community groups and partner agencies the district has been working with, said Dr. Lawrence Sands, the district’s chief health officer.

“One of the strengths of our application was that we have built up these relationships already,” Sands said. “These aren’t relationships that just came together to get this grant.”

Mesquite City Councilwoman Donna Fairchild, who is a member of the board of health, said the funds would go a long way in helping the community.

“Without aggressive efforts to prevent and control chronic diseases … the rise in health care costs of preventable diseases will remain unchecked and an increasing number of Americans will continue to suffer from tobacco- and obesity-related illnesses,” she said. “Prevention and wellness are an important part of cutting costs, improving the heath of Americans, and make best use of our community’s limited resources.”

The cost of treating tobacco-related illnesses in Nevada is $565 million per year, said Maria Azzarelli, the district’s Tobacco Control Program coordinator.

Azzarelli said when compared to the cost of treating illnesses, as well as the $113 million the tobacco industry spends annually on advertising in Nevada, the grant doesn’t look like much, but it will make a difference.

“This amount of money has never been dedicated to smoking cessation before in Southern Nevada,” she said. “With this new grant award we will be able to fight back against the tobacco industry to accomplish so much more over the next two years.”

Many of the groups that will be working with the district have been struggling financially, Azzarelli said.

“A lot of these projects are going through budget cuts and some face elimination,” she said. “This money could not have come at a better time for them.”

The Nevada Cancer Institute is one of those groups, said Rosemary West, the institute’s partnership director.

The institute expects to get funding through the district to begin doing adult smoking cessation workshops. The institute stopped the program when funding dried up, West said.

Another beneficiary of the grant will be Rescue SCG, a research and marketing company that works with organizations for social change.

The company currently has one employee in Las Vegas, but plans on hiring five additional full-time workers and a number of part-time staffers, President Jeff Jordan said.

But the real importance of the grant will be its effect on the community, he said.

“This is about building a lifestyle around being smoke-free,” Jordan said. “Being smoke-free can be sexy, it can be cool, it can be all those things tobacco promises.”