Campaign encourages people to imagine Oregon without tobacco
Albany, Ore. — A new campaign from the Oregon Health Authority’s (OHA’s) Smokefree Oregon invites community members to imagine what Oregon could look like free from the harms of tobacco and provides actions they can take to create that reality for Linn County.
The campaign was designed in collaboration with community-based organizations and local public health authorities who have been working to address tobacco use across Oregon.
Dani Crabtree, the tobacco prevention and education coordinator for Linn County, was part of the Addressing Commercial Tobacco (ACT) Advisory Committee that developed this campaign.
“I joined the committee because I want to be part of telling the story about what tobacco does to Oregon communities and how, together, we can turn that around,” Crabtree said. “Everyone on the committee has their stories, their reasons why this work is so important to them. We built those shared experiences and stories into the campaign as a way of recognizing those differences.”
In Linn County, 16% of adults still regularly smoke cigarettes and roughly 1,680 people annually are diagnosed with a tobacco-related illness (Oregon Health Authority, 2024). Roughly 7% of adults in Oregon use e-cigarettes/vapes (Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2022), and 10.8% of Linn County youth vaping (Oregon Student Health Survey, 2022). The impact of tobacco can be worse for people struggling with mental health, who have lower incomes; children and young people; for people of color; and for people trying to quit (The Truth Initative, 2017).
Tobacco prevention campaigns, like Imagine, are meant to help people quit and prevent tobacco use in the first place.
“With this campaign, our goal is to bring people together, to show how tobacco affects us all, and to acknowledge we all have a way to do something about it,” Crabtree said. “Instead of saying, ‘If you smoke, quit,” we’re saying, ‘if you love your community, imagine it without tobacco–and create it together.’ We need to come together as a community and say: We don’t want our community to look like X, and instead we are going to support each other in ways that make us feel like part of the community.”
Ads from the campaign feature original illustrations by Oregon artists and will run on billboards, television, digital media and other channels across the state from April 2 through July 30, 2024. The campaign directs people to visit SmokefreeOregon.com/Imagine, where they can get involved in tobacco prevention work, get help quitting tobacco or support someone trying to quit, and or find ideas on what others have imagined for a tobacco-free Oregon.
“If you’re not sparked by what’s on the Smoke Free Oregon website, and there’s something else you’d like to do to create a tobacco-free Oregon, do it!” Crabtree said. “Just because something is being done, doesn’t mean we can’t imagine something different for our communities.”
The Linn County tobacco prevention program partners with and provides resources for community members and county organizations related to tobacco prevention education and local cessation opportunities.
If you need help quitting tobacco, free support and resources are available through the Oregon Tobacco Quit Line:
· For services in English: Visit www.quitnow.net/oregon or call 1-800-QUIT-NOW.
· For services in Spanish: Visit www.quitnow.net/oregonsp or call 1-855-DEJELO-YA.
· For services tailored to American Indians and Alaska Natives: Visit https://smokefreeoregon.com/native-quit-line/ or call 1-800-QUIT-NOW and press 7.
· The Freedom from Smoking class is also available through the Samaritan Health Services Regional Education Hub and is free. Class and registration information can be found at https://samhealth.org/event/freedom-from-smoking-2/
Posted 4-19-2024
