Celebrate Asian American Heritage Month by Quitting Smoking
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Celebrate Asian American Heritage Month by Quitting Smoking
5/3/2010
Free Online Resource with EX®
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sixty-eight percent of Asian Americans want to quit smoking. However, the average American takes 8 to 11 attempts to quit smoking. As we recognize Asian American Heritage Month, EX® offers a free way to break the smoking addiction.
With the latest research estimating that nearly six million people worldwide will lose their lives to tobacco next year1, EX takes an innovative approach to helping the 43 million Americans who smoke to finally quit. The national quit smoking campaign is sponsored by the National Alliance for Tobacco Cessation (NATC), a two-year old collaborative of state and national public health groups spearheaded by Legacy, creators of the award-winning truth® youth smoking prevention campaign.
“While Asian Americans smoke at lower rates, they are not immune to the addiction that makes quitting difficult,” said Cheryl G. Healton, DrPH, President and CEO of Legacy. “EX is a free resource created by and for smokers and I am confident that it can help Americans re-learn life without tobacco.”
EX provides evidence-based tools to help smokers quit, including information that can help them prepare for a quit attempt by 1) “Re-learning” their thinking on the behavioral aspects of smoking and how different smoking triggers can be overcome with practice and preparation; 2) “Re-learning” their knowledge of addiction and how medications can increase their chances for quitting success; and 3) “Re-learning” their ideas of how support from friends and family members can play a critical role in quitting.
For smokers committed to quitting, the EX website (www.BecomeAnEX.org) provides a free comprehensive quit plan with tools and information that can help them form their own individual plans. The website serves as a convening point for smokers who want to quit and collaborate on their successes and challenges with others going through the same struggle. Since March 2008, when the program first debuted, more than a million people have visited the site, and more than 14,000 smokers have joined the online community, forming nearly 300 customized support groups, including a variety of groups for Asian-American smokers. EX tools were designed in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic and with input from former and current smokers who have lived with this struggle, in order to provide smokers with a realistic approach based on evidence-based research.
Most smokers in America – 70 percent – want to quit, but in 2000, only about five percent of smokers were successful in quitting long-term. Quitting smoking is ultimately one of the single most important lifestyle changes one can make to improve and extend their lives. Tobacco-related death is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States; smokers therefore need to be armed with all the available information to make the best, most informed choices about the smoking cessation medications and resources available to them.
In 2006-2007, Legacy, the national public health foundation best known for its truth youth-smoking prevention campaign pilot tested EX in four markets throughout the country: Buffalo, N.Y.; San Antonio, Texas; Grand Rapids, Mich.; and Baltimore, Md. A new study released in the September 2009 issue of Social Marketing Quarterly found that EX was a trusted and empathetic brand and that smokers who were thinking more about quitting or were more motivated to quit were significantly more receptive to the EX brand than those who had not yet reached that point in their quit process. As a result of the successful pilot program, in 2007, Legacy brought together several national organizations and several states to form the NATC and launch EX nationally. The NATC is a group of states, non-profit organizations, foundations and corporations, all dedicated to helping people quit smoking.
EX® is a collaborative public health campaign presented by the National Alliance for Tobacco Cessation, a partnership of the nation's leading public health organizations and states. The campaign helps smokers prepare to quit and guides them to useful resources that foster successful quit attempts including the EX plan, a free personalized quit plan available on the campaign’s website www.BecomeAnEX.org. EX is the culmination of several years of research and testing, combining an understanding of the power of nicotine addiction with messages that resonate with and motivate smokers toward behavior change. The EX approach is peer to peer and focuses on "re-learning life without cigarettes" by encouraging smokers to think differently about the process of quitting. The campaign, which began airing nationwide in March 2008, includes television, radio, online AND out-of-home advertising. The EX website helps smokers create their own individual plan to quit and connects them to a virtual community of other smokers where they can share stories and strategies about quitting. Founding members of the NATC include numerous states and the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the National Cancer Institute, the American Legacy Foundation, C-Change, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and clinical partner, the Mayo Clinic.
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Contact: Julia Cartwright, 202-454-5596, jcartwright@legacyforhealth.org
1Tobacco Atlas, American Cancer Society and World Lung Association, August 2009.