Experts say the Texas Panhandle is standing out in lung cancer statistics, with Dalhart and Muleshoe being among the towns with the highest occurrences of lung cancer and the highest cancer rates state-wide.

Professors and graduate students from Texas Tech's Human Sciences and Agricultural Sciences program will be in Dalhart this week recruiting volunteers to do an 18-month study on the community health risk.

Grant Wallace of the American Cancer Society said the Panhandle has more smokers than other parts of the state and he sums it up to be a result of poor smoking and cancer education.

"I think we all need to have an increased awareness of what we're doing and just a better consciousness of being realistic, he said."

Wallace also pointed out that more than 3,000 people die each year from lung cancer caused by inhaling secondhand smoke.

"Yes, it is your decision to smoke and if you're over 18, you're more than able and free to go do that. But do that in a more responsible manner that's not going to impact the entire community and people like myself who don't and never have smoked."

A 2011 study by the American Cancer Society shows the state of Texas has 105,000 new cases of cancer and nearly 14,000 of those cases are lung and bronchus related. Wallace said 95 to 98 percent of those 14,000 cases are the result of smoking.

To see the American Cancer Society's study or for more information on cancer and smoking risks, visit www.cancer.org.