Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States and certain racial and ethnic minority groups are at higher risk for using tobacco. This is the first Surgeon General's report to focus on tobacco use among these four racial and ethnic minority groups. It provides a single, comprehensive source of data on each group's pattern of tobacco use and presents information on national and regional efforts to curtail consumption of tobacco products. Preventing health problems related to tobacco use among these individuals will be integral to achieving the Healthy People 2000 objectives. Following the introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 illustrates how patterns of tobacco use differ among the groups. Chapter 3 compares the groups in terms of the incidence and prevalence of death rates for diseases commonly associated with tobacco use. Chapter 4 analyzes the smoking-related health status of these groups to determine if there is a differential risk for tobacco addiction. Chapter 5 discusses tobacco control and education efforts among members of the four ethnic minority groups. (Contains 43 references.) (JDM)