Formation | 1999 |
---|---|
Type | Nonprofit organization |
Purpose | Tobacco control, community outreach, research, smoking cessation, public health |
Headquarters | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Location |
|
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.
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]
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]
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]
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]
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:
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]
Name | Position | Role | Location |
---|---|---|---|
Kathy Crosby | CEO and President | Director Ex Officio Truth Initiative | Washington, D.C. |
Mike Moore | Chair | Principal, Mike Moor Law Firm, LLC | Flowood, MS |
Doug Peterson [33] | Treasurer | Nebraska Attorney General | Lincoln, NE |
Georges C. Benjamin, MD | Director | Executive Director, American Public Health Association | Washington, D.C. |
Nancy Brown [34] [35] | Vice Chair | CEO, American Heart Association | Dallas, TX |
Herb Conaway, MD | Director | Member, New Jersey General Assembly | Delran, NJ |
Mike DeWine | Director | Governor of Ohio | Columbus, OH |
James (Jim) Dunnigan | Director | Representative, Utah State Legislature | Salt Lake City, UT |
Mary T. Bassett, MD, MPH | Director | Commissioner, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene | New York City, NY |
Steve Oyer | Director | President, i[x] Investments | New York City, NY |
Josh Stein | Director | Attorney General of North Carolina | Raleigh, NC |
Gina Raimondo | Director | Secretary of Commerce | Providence, RI |
Giana Darville | Youth Board Liaison | Oakwood University Alum | Memphis, TN |
J'Pierre Bolling | Youth Board Liaison | Georgia State University | Brooklyn, NY |
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:
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.
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.
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.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is the name of a number of autonomous pressure groups (charities) in the anglosphere that seek to publicize the risks associated with tobacco smoking and campaign for greater restrictions on use and on cigarette and tobacco sales.
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.
A menthol cigarette is a cigarette infused with the compound menthol which imparts a “minty” flavor to the smoke. Menthol also decreases irritant sensations from nicotine by desensitizing receptors, making smoking feel less harsh compared to regular cigarettes. Some studies have suggested that they are more addictive. Menthol cigarettes are just as hard to quit and are just as harmful as regular cigarettes.
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.
Nicotine dependence is a state of dependence upon nicotine. Nicotine dependence is a chronic, relapsing disease defined as a compulsive craving to use the drug, despite social consequences, loss of control over drug intake, and emergence of withdrawal symptoms. Tolerance is another component of drug dependence. Nicotine dependence develops over time as a person continues to use nicotine. The most commonly used tobacco product is cigarettes, but all forms of tobacco use and e-cigarette use can cause dependence. Nicotine dependence is a serious public health problem because it leads to continued tobacco use, which is one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide, causing more than 8 million deaths per year.
Tobacco control is a field of international public health science, policy and practice dedicated to addressing tobacco use and thereby reducing the morbidity and mortality it causes. Since most cigarettes and cigars and hookahs contain/use tobacco, tobacco control also concerns these. E-cigarettes do not contain tobacco itself, but (often) do contain nicotine. Tobacco control is a priority area for the World Health Organization (WHO), through the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. References to a tobacco control movement may have either positive or negative connotations, depending upon the commentator.
Tobacco has a long cultural, economic, and social impact on the United States. Tobacco cultivation in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1610 led 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.
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.
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.
Cigarette smoking for weight loss is a weight control method whereby one consumes tobacco, often in the form of cigarettes, to decrease one's appetite. The practice dates to early knowledge of nicotine as an appetite suppressant.
Smoking in South Korea has decreased overall for both men and women in the past decades. However, a high prevalence of tobacco use is still observed, especially with the rise of novel tobacco products such as e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn tobacco products. There are socioeconomic inequalities in smoking prevalence according to gender, income, education, and occupational class. Advocates call for measures to reduce the smoking rates and address smoking inequalities using a combination of monitoring and tobacco control policies. These measures include significant price hikes, mandatory warning photos on cigarette packs, advertising bans, financial incentives, medical help for quitting, and complete smoking bans in public places.
Tobacco Free Florida is an anti-smoking organization based in the U.S. state of Florida, administered by the Florida Department of Health.
The scientific community in the United States and Europe are primarily concerned with the possible effect of electronic cigarette use on public health. There is concern among public health experts that e-cigarettes could renormalize smoking, weaken measures to control tobacco, and serve as a gateway for smoking among youth. The public health community is divided over whether to support e-cigarettes, because their safety and efficacy for quitting smoking is unclear. Many in the public health community acknowledge the potential for their quitting smoking and decreasing harm benefits, but there remains a concern over their long-term safety and potential for a new era of users to get addicted to nicotine and then tobacco. There is concern among tobacco control academics and advocates that prevalent universal vaping "will bring its own distinct but as yet unknown health risks in the same way tobacco smoking did, as a result of chronic exposure", among other things.
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.
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.