Cigarette and alcohol usage by southwestern American Indians.

Abstract

The Indian patients over 15 years of age who were admitted to the medical service of the Phoenix Public Health Service Indian Hospital from 1961 through 1965 were interviewed concerning cigarette and alcohol usage. For uniformity, all of the information which is utilized was obtained by one interviewer. Multiple hospital admissions with repeated interviews occurred for several patients, but each individual is included in the study only once. The Phoenix Public Health Service Indian Hospital is a referral center for an Indian beneficiary population of over 48,000, located in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah. The tribal distribution of hospital admissions was: Pima, 35.1 per cent; Apache, 21.3 per cent; Navajo, 10.2 per cent; Papago, 8.0 per cent; Hopi, 6.3 per cent; other southwestern tribes (Maricopa Yavapai, Cocopah, Yuma, Hualapai, Havasupai, Chemehuevi, Mohave, Shoshone, Ute, Paiute and Washoe), 15.9 per cent; and nonsouthwestern Indians, 3.2 per cent. Although criteria for evaluation of cigarette smoking are relatively straightforward and noncontroversial, it is much more difficult to categorize the extent to which alcohol is used. Lifetime histories were considered. Cigarette smoking was classified as follows: none; light (less than one-half package a day) ; moderate (between one-half and one package daily) ; and heavy (greater than one package daily). For alcohol usage, the quantity-frequency index of Mulford and Miller1 was used. The four cate-