Truth Initiative

Last updated
Truth Initiative
Formation1999;25 years ago (1999)
TypeNonprofit organization
Purpose Tobacco control, community outreach, research, smoking cessation, public health
Headquarters Washington, D.C., U.S.
Location
  • United States
Key people
Kathy Crosby, CEO and president Mike Moore, chair, board of directors
Staff
133 (2017)
Website truthinitiative.org
Formerly called
American Legacy Foundation (1999–2015)

Truth Initiative (formerly the American Legacy Foundation or Legacy) [1] [2] is a nonprofit tobacco control organization "dedicated to achieving a culture where all youth and young adults reject tobacco". [3] It was established in March 1999 as a result of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement between the attorneys general of 46 states, the District of Columbia and five United States territories, and the tobacco industry. [4] Truth Initiative is best known for its youth smoking prevention campaign. [5] [6] [7] Its other primary aims include conducting tobacco control research and policy studies, organizing community and youth engagement programs and developing digital cessation and prevention products, including through revenue-generating models. [8] The organization changed its name from the American Legacy Foundation to Truth Initiative on September 8, 2015, to align its name with that of its Truth campaign. [9] As of 2016, the organization had more than $957 million in assets [10] and a staff of 133 based primarily in its Washington, D.C., office.

Contents

History

Truth Initiative was founded in 1999 as a result of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA). The MSA was announced in 1998, resolving the lawsuits brought by 46 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and five territories against the major U.S. cigarette companies, to recover state Medicaid and other costs from caring for sick smokers. The four other states settled separately. The tobacco industry agreed to pay the states billions of dollars in perpetuity, making the MSA the then-largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history. The states directed that a portion of the money they received from the settlement should be used to establish a national public health foundation dedicated to prevent youth smoking and helping smokers quit: the American Legacy Foundation, now Truth Initiative. [11]

In 2018, the Truth Initiative partnered with Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Ad Council to combat opioid addiction. [12] [13]

Activities

Truth Campaign

Truth Initiative's signature program is its Truth campaign, a youth smoking prevention mass media public education program that has been widely credited with contributing to a significant drop in teen smoking. [14] In 2000, 23% of American 8th, 10th and 12th graders smoked. As of 2016, that figure was 6%. [15] The campaign exposes tobacco industry practices as well as the health effects and social consequences of smoking. [16]

Truth Initiative Schroeder Institute

Researchers in the Truth Initiative Schroeder Institute publish dozens of peer-reviewed research articles each year with the goal of identifying methods to minimize the harms of tobacco use, measure the effectiveness of interventions and identify best practices for tobacco control. [17] Research is also done to assess the Truth campaign's efforts, both pre-and post-market, including the use of the longitudinal Truth Longitudinal Cohort (TLC) survey of more than 10,000 young people and a continuous tracking study to assess campaign awareness and message receptivity. [18]

In the early 2000s the American Legacy Foundation (as the Truth Initiative was then known) gave around $10 million of the settlement funds it managed to the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) to help it formalize and expand the collection of internal tobacco industry documents that its library already hosted; the collection was then named the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. [19] [20] As of May 2017, the library contained 14.7 million internal documents (nearly 89 million pages) created by major tobacco companies related to their advertising, manufacturing, marketing, sales and scientific research activities. [21]

Community and Youth Engagement

Truth Initiative provides individuals, coalitions, and organizations information and methods to reduce tobacco use in their communities. The organization trains and educates young people interested in tobacco control and partners with community-serving organizations to reduce tobacco use. This includes a grant program for community colleges and historically black colleges and universities to create tobacco-free campuses. [22]

Examples of youth activism programs include:

These community engagement programs are often an "on the ground" extension of the Truth campaign's work. Supporters of the campaign are called upon to support other anti-tobacco issues, such as a 2017 rally outside a Walgreens shareholders meeting in New York that was organized to pressure the pharmacy's board of directors to stop selling tobacco in its stores. [23]

Innovations

The innovations center within Truth Initiative designs, builds and markets digital smoking cessation and prevention products that are centered around online social networks, text messaging and web and mobile applications. Any revenue generated by the innovations programs helps support other work at the organization. [24]

Examples of these programs include:

Leadership

Staff

Truth Initiative is led by a senior leadership team with representatives from each of its functional program areas. Headed by CEO and President Kathy Crosby, [29] this team includes: [30]

Board of Directors [32]

NamePositionRoleLocation
Kathy CrosbyCEO and PresidentDirector Ex Officio Truth InitiativeWashington, D.C.
Mike Moore ChairPrincipal, Mike Moor Law Firm, LLCFlowood, MS
Doug Peterson [33] TreasurerNebraska Attorney GeneralLincoln, NE
Georges C. Benjamin, MDDirectorExecutive Director, American Public Health Association Washington, D.C.
Nancy Brown [34] [35] Vice ChairCEO, American Heart Association Dallas, TX
Herb Conaway, MDDirectorMember, New Jersey General AssemblyDelran, NJ
Mike DeWine DirectorGovernor of OhioColumbus, OH
James (Jim) DunniganDirectorRepresentative, Utah State LegislatureSalt Lake City, UT
Mary T. Bassett, MD, MPHDirectorCommissioner, New York City Department of Health and Mental HygieneNew York City, NY
Steve OyerDirectorPresident, i[x] InvestmentsNew York City, NY
Josh Stein DirectorAttorney General of North CarolinaRaleigh, NC
Gina Raimondo DirectorSecretary of CommerceProvidence, RI
Giana DarvilleYouth Board LiaisonOakwood University AlumMemphis, TN
J'Pierre BollingYouth Board LiaisonGeorgia State UniversityBrooklyn, NY

Awards and recognition

In addition to awards for its Truth campaign, including being named among the top 10 ad campaigns of the 21st century, [36] Truth Initiative has also been recognized with the following:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smoking cessation</span> Process of discontinuing tobacco smoking

Smoking cessation, usually called quitting smoking or stopping smoking, is the process of discontinuing tobacco smoking. Tobacco smoke contains nicotine, which is addictive and can cause dependence. As a result, nicotine withdrawal often makes the process of quitting difficult.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World No Tobacco Day</span> International observance on 31 May

World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) is observed around the world every year on 31 May. The annual observance informs the public on the dangers of using tobacco, the business practices of tobacco companies, what the World Health Organization (WHO) is doing to fight against the use of tobacco, and what people around the world can do to claim their right to health and healthy living and to protect future generations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicotine marketing</span> Marketing technique

Nicotine marketing is the marketing of nicotine-containing products or use. Traditionally, the tobacco industry markets cigarette smoking, but it is increasingly marketing other products, such as electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products. Products are marketed through social media, stealth marketing, mass media, and sponsorship. Expenditures on nicotine marketing are in the tens of billions a year; in the US alone, spending was over US$1 million per hour in 2016; in 2003, per-capita marketing spending was $290 per adult smoker, or $45 per inhabitant. Nicotine marketing is increasingly regulated; some forms of nicotine advertising are banned in many countries. The World Health Organization recommends a complete tobacco advertising ban.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Health effects of tobacco</span> Circumstances, mechanisms, and factors of tobacco consumption on human health

Tobacco products, especially when smoked or used orally, have negative effects on human health. Researchers have addressed concerns about these effects for a long time. They have focused primarily on cigarette smoking.

Truth is an American public-relations campaign aimed at reducing teen smoking in the United States. It is conducted by the Truth Initiative and funded primarily by money obtained from the tobacco industry under the terms of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement reached between 46 U.S. states and the four largest companies in the tobacco industry.

Steven A. Schroeder is Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he also heads the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center. He served as the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 1990 to 2002. Schroeder is known for his work in promoting smoking cessation strategies.

The Youth Tobacco Cessation Collaborative (YTCC) was formed in the United States in 1998 to address the gap in knowledge about what cessation strategies are most effective in assisting youth to quit smoking. Collaborative members represent major organizations that fund research, program, and policy initiatives related to controlling youth tobacco use.


Tobacco harm reduction (THR) is a public health strategy to lower the health risks to individuals and wider society associated with using tobacco products. It is an example of the concept of harm reduction, a strategy for dealing with the use of drugs. Tobacco smoking is widely acknowledged as a leading cause of illness and death, and reducing smoking is vital to public health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic cigarette</span> Device that vaporizes a liquid nicotine solution for inhalation

An electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) or vape is a device that simulates tobacco smoking. It consists of an atomizer, a power source such as a battery, and a container such as a cartridge or tank filled with liquid. Instead of smoke, the user inhales vapor. As such, using an e-cigarette is often called "vaping". The atomizer is a heating element that vaporizes a liquid solution called e-liquid, which quickly cools into an aerosol of tiny droplets, vapor and air. E-cigarettes are activated by taking a puff or pressing a button. Some look like traditional cigarettes, and most kinds are reusable. The vapor mainly comprises propylene glycol and/or glycerin, usually with nicotine and flavoring. Its exact composition varies, and depends on several things including user behavior.

Nicotine Anonymous (NicA) is a twelve-step program founded in 1982 for people desiring to quit smoking and live free of nicotine. As of July 2017, there are over 700 face-to-face meetings in 32 countries worldwide with the majority of these meetings occurring in the United States, Iran, India, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Australia, Russia and in various online community and social media platforms.. NicA maintains that total abstinence from nicotine is necessary for recovery. NicA defines abstinence as “a state that begins when all use of nicotine ceases.

Stanton Arnold Glantz is an American professor, author, and tobacco control activist. Glantz is a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, where he is a Professor of Medicine (retired) in the Division of Cardiology, the American Legacy Foundation Distinguished Professor of Tobacco Control, and former director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. Glantz's research focused on the health effects of tobacco smoking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco politics</span> Politics surrounding the use and distribution of tobacco

Tobacco politics refers to the politics surrounding the use and distribution of tobacco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco in the United States</span>

Tobacco has a long cultural, economic, and social impact on the United States. Tobacco cultivation in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1610 lead to the expansion of British colonialism in the Southern United States. As the demand for Tobacco grew in Europe, further colonization in British America and Tobacco production saw a parallel increase. Tobacco use became normalized in American society and was heavily consumed before and after American independence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Youth smoking</span> Overview article

Smokingamong youth and adolescents is an issue that affects countries worldwide. While the extent to which smoking is viewed as a negative health behavior may vary across different nations, it remains an issue regardless of how it is perceived by different societies. The United States has taken numerous measures, ranging from changes in national policy surrounding youth cigarette access to changes in media campaigns, in attempts to eliminate the use of tobacco products among teenagers. Approximately 90% of smokers begin smoking prior to the age of 18.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cigarette smoking among college students</span> Smoking cigarettes during the college years

The majority of lifelong smokers begin smoking habits before the age of 24, which makes the college years a critical time for tobacco companies to convince college students to pick up the habit of cigarette smoking. Cigarette smoking in college is seen as a social activity by those who partake in it, and more than half of the students that are users do not consider themselves smokers. This may be because most college students plan to quit smoking by the time that they graduate.

Tobacco Free Florida is an anti-smoking organization based in the U.S. state of Florida, administered by the Florida Department of Health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco-free college campuses</span>

Tobacco-free college campuses are colleges and universities that have implemented policies prohibiting the use of tobacco products at all indoor and outdoor campus locations. Tobacco is known to be harmful to the health of smokers, bystanders, and the environment. Since this issue was first recognized, colleges have been creating policies for tobacco use on campus in an effort to improve health standards, provide more enjoyable campus conditions, and to reduce the negative environmental effects of tobacco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linda Sarna</span> American nursing researcher and academic

Linda Sarna is an American nursing researcher and academic. She is dean, professor and Lulu Wolf Hassenplug Chair of the UCLA School of Nursing. Sarna was appointed the school's seventh dean Nov. 15, 2016,. after serving as acting dean (2014-2015) and interim dean (2015-2016).

Cheryl Healton is an American public health researcher who is Professor of Public Health Policy and Dean of School of Global Public Health at New York University. Her research considers public health policy surrounding tobacco control.

Smokers are not selfish is an health campaign taking place in Nepal with the aim of inspiring individuals to quit smoking. This event spaned two weeks, culminating on February 14, 2024, which aligns with Valentine's Day and Vasant Panchami.This initiative has captured public attention, leading to smokers making commitments to quit the habit.According to reports, more than 1700 individuals pledged to quit smoking during this campaign, which is organised by Dr. Om Foundation.

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