The nine-year funding effort will spend more than $40 million to target specific communities with a propensity to smoke.
Michael Renner of the Missouri Foundation for Health said the homosexuals smoke at a rate 2-and-a-half times the national average.
"Within the gay and lesbian population for instance. A lot of research shows that that is a very clear target market for big tobacco, that's probably the biggest piece of information we have is looking at marketing rates."
Renner also said designing an anti-smoking campaign for Eastern Europeans, another group with high smoking rates, will be a first for the organization.
Missouri ranks 49th in the nation in per-pack cigarette taxes at 17-cents. Smoking-related health problems cost Missouri more than $2 billion every year.
© Copyright 2012, St. Louis Public Radio
