Teens’ Photos Tell Story of Tobacco Problems in Minority Neighborhoods

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VictorSAN ANTONIO—Memorial High School student Victor Hernandez (at right) points to his photograph of a smoked cigarette butt lodged in the crack of a sidewalk.

The photo caption starts: “Cigarettes get between everything.”

“People might dream to be a doctor, lawyer – then cigarettes get introduced,” Victor said of the photo’s meaning. “With every cigarette it gets harder and harder to quit, you get closer to death. Your original dream goes away.”

Victor is one of eight students from Edgewood Independent School District’s Kennedy and Memorial high schools who recently partook in a “Photovoice Smoke-Free” project, where students took photos and wrote captions to visually describe the problem of tobacco to policy-makers. Researchers from the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center, the team behind SaludToday, were involved in the project.

See a commemorative book about the students and their photos here.

By The Numbers By The Numbers

25.1

percent

of Latinos remain without health insurance coverage

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