Congratulations, Houston! A few days ago a large group of minority health coalitions, doctors and elected officials celebrated the third anniversary of Houston’s successful smoking ban urging Houstonians “to see their doctors and put down their cigarettes for good.” “Smoke Free for 3,” a campaign lead by the Hispanic Health Coalition, Asian American Health Coalition, African American Health Coalition, Native American Health Coalition, and Houston Communities for Safe Indoor Air (HCSIA), recognized the City of Houston’s leadership and success in creating more smoke free workplaces and public spaces effective Sept. 1, 2007. However, despite the success in public policies, smoking continues to be a significant personal health issue for many Houstonians, particularly for ...
Latinos generally have lower rates of smoking than other racial/ethnic groups with the exception of Asian Americans. However, smoking remains a continuing and serious problem in the Latino community. Get all the key facts on Latino smoking from the American Lung Association. And if you're a Latino who is thinking about quitting smoking, be sure to check out the Buena Vida health magazine in English or Spanish that tells the stories of five Latinos and how they kicked the habit and what it meant for their lives. The Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind Salud Today, produced the magazine and other tobacco prevention ...
A new study shows lighting up a cigarette changes a person's gene activity across the body, a possible clue as to why smoking affects overall health—from heart disease to combating infections, LiveScience reports. A research team from Australia and San Antonio, Texas, analyzed white blood cell samples of 1,240 mainly Mexican-American people, ages 16-94, who were participating in the San Antonio Family Heart Study. They found that the 297 self-identified smokers in the group were more likely to have unusual patterns of "gene expression" related to tumor development, inflammation, virus elimination, cell death and more. A gene is expressed when it codes for a protein that then instructs, or kick-starts, a process in the body. The study found cigarette smoke could alter the level ...
If San Antonio ends up prohibiting smoking in indoor workplaces, its restaurants and bars are not likely to lose patrons to the few and geographically separated establishments outside the city limits that do allow smoking, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday. The analysis identified and mapped the 165 licensed-to-serve alcohol establishments in 30 incorporated towns outside San Antonio, but within Bexar County. The vast majority (117) of those establishments already are smoke-free. The remaining 48 that do allow smoking are fairly geographically separated from each other and, even if weighed as a whole, don’t have the capacity to sustain an influx of smoking customers if ...
For World No Tobacco Day, Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez reflected on the effects of smoking and the opportunities to quit smoking, especially among Latinos. Dr. Ramirez, director of SaludToday and the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio. noted that for every one person that dies from a tobacco-related cause, there are 20 more people who are suffering with at least one serious illness from smoking, such as certain cancers, heart attacks, strokes, cataracts and skin wrinkling. Smoking is the No. 1 cancer killer of Hispanics nationally. Here is a little bit from Dr. Ramirez' op-ed article in LatinaLista:
If you smoke, just imagine some of the benefits you'd immediately achieve by quitting.
You'd have more money to spend. You'd have whiter ...
The Smoke-Free San Antonio campaign, which support a 100% smoke-free city to protect the health of our community, is now on Facebook. "Like" the campaign on Facebook today! Learn more about the orgaization ...
Rave reviews are coming in for a visually stunning booklet featuring minority teens' anti-smoking photos from a project for which eight San Antonio high-school students took photos and wrote captions to visually describe tobacco problems in their neighborhoods to policy-makers. "This is a wonderful example of how to invigorate public health messaging and make it 'sing' within one of your priority populations. The involvement of youth in the planning and execution of the project in a meaningful way is something that should be replicated throughout other areas of the State. Congratulations to...all the 'gang' at the UT Health Science Center for working with the San Antonio Tobacco Prevention and Control Coalition to carry it out!" said Gail Sneden, a project director of Applied Research ...
Eight San Antonio high-school students, including several Latinos, will be recognized on Jan. 22, 2010, for their outstanding work in a Photovoice project that highlights youth tobacco concerns in the community. For the project, students from Kennedy and Memorial high schools in San Antonio identified important issues related to tobacco through group discussions and Photovoice, which blends a grassroots approach to photography and social action, to empower the students to take social action within their community. Students created presentations using their photos and captions. An award ceremony for the students starts at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 22, 2010, at the Casa de Mexico International Building at the Alameda Koehler Auditorium in San Antonio. The public is invited to this free ...
Smoking makes you "Stupidiota." That's the simple thought behind the new bi-cultural youth smoking prevention campaign by DC Tobacco Free Families, which seeks to empower Latino youths to become the messengers and stewards of this cause. A powerful and fascinating creation of Communications-Marketing agency, Elevation, Stupidiota features two TV PSAs inspired by popular video games (The SIMS and World of War Craft), a radio PSA with a catchy Reggaeton beat and other guerilla marketing tools. The campaign equips youth with the tools they need to stay tobacco free and proclaim No Soy Stupidiota (I ain’t no Stupidiota). For more information on Stupidiota, click here. Watch the stupidiota PSA inspired by World of War Craft here or ...
