Grantees Stories
We are proud to launch Grantee Stories – a new online series that highlights a broad range of promising tobacco control programs implemented by organizations with Legacy grant support. Through these stories, we seek to showcase how organizations are using innovative ideas and approaches to make a lasting impact on reducing tobacco use and dependence in underserved communities across the country. As part of this ongoing series, we intend to publish new stories each quarter. These stories are based on the information provided by the grantees.
Promoting a Smoke-Free Lifestyle in Las Vegas - New!
Like many gay men who move to Las Vegas, Andrew Iha went out to the clubs at night to connect with his community. Like many gay men, he started smoking in those clubs. Andrew had moved from Hawaii to go to school at University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), and before he knew it, he went from social smoker to a pack-a-day habit. Read more.
Taming the Tobacco Beast with Teen Support - New!
HiTOPS is a one-stop health shop for adolescents and young adults in Princeton, New Jersey. For twenty years, young people have come to this innovative clinic for healthcare advice ranging from reproductive issues to substance abuse. Over the years, HiTOPS has developed a reputation for creating peer education programs that address the real needs of the community. "Teens teaching teens" can be an effective model for education across a range of healthcare concerns. Read more.
Advocate Illinois: Helping Deaf Americans Quit Smoking
Ms. Dedra Gates is a forty two-year-old deaf woman living in the Chicago area who has smoked since she was seventeen. Her parents put her in a hospital for behavioral problems when she was a teenager. Dedra did not have easy access to a therapist fluent in American Sign Language so hospital staff permitted her to smoke cigarettes to help her manage her feelings. “I was angry and I couldn’t really express myself and it felt good to smoke,” she recalled. “It didn’t take long for me to get hooked.” Read more.
Positively Smoke Free: Targeting the Quiet Killer in the HIV/ AIDS Population
Numerous studies have indicated that persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) in the U.S. smoke at much higher rates than the general population, with rates between 35% and 70% in that population. (1-9) This astronomical prevalence rate of tobacco use undercuts the advanced longevity and improved health enabled by antiretroviral therapy. Since the mid nineties, morbidity and mortality statistics show a striking rise of cardiac disease and tobacco related illnesses as causes of hospitalizations and deaths among PLWHAs. Before the era of antiretroviral therapy, AIDS patients were not dying of heart attacks and lung cancer, but from pneumonias and central nervous system infections. Read more.
Brian Paulson has played the Fender electric piano alongside Dizzy Gillespie and other Grammy award winners, but the secondhand smoke still clinging to most Indianapolis music venues these days limits his performances. After many years of playing in smoke- filled rooms, Paulson made a tough decision. He would put his health first. Read more.
Melody Corporan was living with her three daughters in the HELP USA family shelter in the Bronx when the cravings started to kick in. She had quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey two years prior when she found out she was pregnant with her youngest. But the day-to-day stress was getting to her and she found herself fighting old demons. Read more.