Tobacco still being used by athletes, coaches

Many student athletes, particularly football and baseball players, in Mississippi's junior and senior high schools, use tobacco - as do their coaches - according to the results of two new studies.

Further, an oral screening conducted among student athletes in a third study, revealed that many students with a history of tobacco use had an oral lesion, which can be an early warning sign of mouth cancer.

These studies, conducted by former athletes who are researchers at the University of Mississippi School of Dentistry, were presented on Thursday in Baltimore, Maryland during the 83rd General Session of the International Association for Dental Research.

Based on the findings, "early intervention" by dentists and other healthcare providers is needed, to decrease the risk of oral cancer among athletes who use tobacco, Dr. Kyle Hunt, who was involved in all three studies, told AMN Health.

He warned that if signs of oral cancer are not detected early, the risk of death increases.

Among the 698 seventh through twelfth graders surveyed in the first study, nearly 23 percent of boys said they had ever used tobacco in comparison to about 3 percent of girls, according to Hunt and his team. White athletes were more likely to report a history of tobacco use and were more likely to have used smokeless tobacco than were their black peers.

Further, a history of tobacco use was especially common among football and baseball players, who were more likely to say they had used tobacco than to say they had not. Football and baseball players have more "down time" to use tobacco, in comparison to athletes who participate in basketball or track, Hunt said, adding that "you can't spit" (smokeless tobacco) on the basketball court or track field.

In other findings, 37 percent of athletes in private school and 22 percent of athletes in public school said their coach used tobacco at sports events as well, the investigators report.

"Students attitudes toward tobacco use may be affected by perception of their coaches' use and attitudes, suggesting a target for education and intervention," Hunt and his colleagues conclude.

To confirm this conclusion, Hunt joined Dr. Brock Martin and his team in their study of junior and senior high school coaches' attitudes about tobacco use.

They sent a 40-question anonymous survey to 1,600 coaches of various sports in public and private schools in Mississippi. Eighty-one percent of the more than 800 respondents were white, and 84 percent were male.

Based on the responses given, the researchers concluded "tobacco use rates among athletes may be in part related to coach attitudes, beliefs and practices."