The report

is the sixth in a series of seven reports created by GHA's statewide Partnership

for Health and Accountability that underline Georgia's biggest health

challenges. The reports were created to increase public awareness of these

issues and bring attention by state legislators and policy makers toward

improving community health.

The following

are a few findings included in the report:

An estimated

48 million adults in the United States smoke cigarettes, including 24

percent of Georgia adults.

Smoking is

responsible for more deaths than AIDS, alcohol, motor vehicle accidents,

homicide, drugs and suicide combined.

Georgians

who die as a result of their smoking habits lose an average of 15 years

of life.

Out of $1.2

billion in direct health care costs for the treatment of smoking-related

illnesses, $840 million comes directly from Georgia residents' tax dollars.

An estimated

30,000 Georgia children between ages 10 and 13 begin to smoke every year.

In 1999, 43 percent of Georgia sixth-graders, 57 percent of seventh-graders

and 65 percent of eighth-graders had reported that they had used tobacco

products in their lifetimes.

Tobacco use

is not only a major cause of heart disease (threefold increase in risk

of heart attack), bronchitis, emphysema, stroke, and cancers of the lung,

larynx, pharynx and esophagus, but is also a contributing factor to cancers

of the bladder, pancreas, cervix and kidneys.

"We need

to educate children as early as possible to let them know the dangers

of smoking and make the education related to their everyday life,"

said Rana Bayakly with the Department of Human Resources Cancer Control

Division. "Children begin smoking as early as 10 years of age, so

I would start the education as early as elementary school."

Preventing

the problem of tobacco use before it starts would save Georgia billions

of taxpayer dollars and thousands of lives. Due to antismoking campaigns

aimed at adolescents, within a span of only two years, tobacco use in

Florida declined by 54 percent among middle school students and by 24

percent among high school students.

Adopting a

healthy lifestyle, including smoking cessation, reduces a person's risk

of lung cancer, heart attack, stroke or respiratory illness.

The Partnership

for Health and Accountability, formed in January 2000 and sponsored by

the Georgia Hospital Association, is a unique statewide collaborative

that brings together health care providers with community agencies and

individuals to achieve healthy communities. PHA includes representation

from groups like hospitals, physicians, state health officials, legislators

and businesses.

The release

of the seven health indicators reports marks the beginning of a massive

statewide initiative by PHA to create public awareness of the various

health problems that plague a large portion of the state's population.

Efforts will even include a series of community forums in selected areas

in Georgia most affected by these health issues.

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