Tips Campaign Matte Article for American Indian/Alaska Native Communities

This matte article about the Tips From Former Smokers^® campaign is ready for use. It is available for journalists, bloggers, other members of the media, and organizations’ newsletters.

CDC’s Tips From Former Smokers Campaign Airing a New Round of Hard-Hitting Commercials

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Tips From Former Smokers^® (Tips^®) campaign returns with new hard-hitting ads. The campaign features real people impacted by the health effects of smoking and secondhand smoke exposure. The Tips campaign also tells the stories of family members who take care of a loved one living with a smoking-related disease.

Many of this year’s new ads include messaging about the harms of smoking menthol cigarettes. Tobacco companies add menthol to commercial tobacco products to make them seem less harsh and more appealing to people who have never used cigarettes. People who smoke menthol cigarettes can be less likely to successfully quit than people who smoke non-menthol cigarettes.

Tobacco companies aggressively market menthol-flavored tobacco products to different groups of people. This marketing contributes to certain groups being more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes than other groups. Young people, racial and ethnic minority groups, LGBTQ+ people, women, people with a low income, and people with mental health conditions are more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes than other population groups.

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) adults in the United States have a higher prevalence of cigarette smoking than most other racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Although cigarette smoking prevalence in the general population has declined in recent years, prevalence among the AI/AN population remains high. In 2020, 27.1% AI/AN adults in the United States smoked cigarettes, compared with about 12.5% of U.S. adults overall.

Tammy W., a member of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians tribe, shares her story in the Tips campaign. Tammy ate healthy, exercised regularly, and ran marathons. She thought that menthol cigarettes were less harmful than non-menthol cigarettes.

At age 44, Tammy learned she had severe heart disease and had to have emergency open-heart surgery.

She quit smoking after her surgery. “Open-heart surgery and the possibility of dying motivated me,” Tammy said. “Life is a gift. I want to stay here as long as I can.”

The new campaign ads air beginning February 5, 2024 and run through September 22, 2024.

“The Tips ads show the challenges real people face every day as a result of smoking in a way that statistics cannot,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, PhD, MPH, Director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. “We are grateful to all of the people featured in the Tips campaign for sharing their personal stories about how smoking has negatively impacted their lives. By providing information, resources, and motivation, the Tips campaign has helped save lives.”

CDC launched the first federally funded national tobacco education campaign, Tips, in March 2012. From 2012–2018, CDC estimates that approximately one million people successfully quit smoking and millions more tried to quit because of the Tips campaign.

For more information about the Tips campaign and resources for quitting smoking, visit CDC.gov/tips. For help quitting, call 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-8669).

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