People with Mental Health Challenges
How Big Tobacco Targets People With Mental Health Challenges
Big Tobacco actively works to ensure that they can profit off people with mental health challenges. They funded misleading research to show that people with mental illness can use their products to relieve symptoms.1 The industry has even distributed free cigarettes in psychiatric facilities.2
Due to predatory tactics like these, people with mental health challenges have the second highest smoking and tobacco use rates in California.3 Factors such as stressful living conditions, low income, and lack of access to health coverage and care can all make attempts to quit more challenging.4
People with mental health challenges shouldn’t have to fight off Big Tobacco.
The proof is in the data
Indicator | People with Mental Health Challenges | General Population |
|---|---|---|
Adult tobacco use | ||
1. Adult Cigarette Use: Adult cigarette smoking prevalence | 64.0% The estimate is significantly higher than the California general population. | 6.1% |
| ||
2. Change in Adult Cigarette Use: Rate of change in adult cigarette smoking, 2014 to 2022 | -67.3% The 2022 estimate is significantly lower than the 2014 estimate. | -50.8% |
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3. Adult Tobacco Use: Adult tobacco use prevalence (e.g. cigarettes, e-cigarettes and other vaping products, other tobacco products) | 20.0% The estimate is significantly higher than the California general population. | 11.4% |
| ||
Youth tobacco use | ||
4. Youth Cigarette Use: Youth cigarette smoking prevalence | 2.4% The estimate is significantly higher than the California general population. | 1.2% |
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5. Youth Tobacco Use: Youth tobacco use prevalence (e.g. cigarettes, e-cigarettes and other vaping products, other tobacco products) | 14.8% The estimate is significantly higher than the California general population. | 7.3% |
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Secondhand smoke | ||
6. Adult Secondhand Tobacco Exposure: Proportion of adults exposed to secondhand smoke or vape | 40.2% The estimate is significantly higher than the California general population. | 24.5% |
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7. Youth Secondhand Tobacco Exposure: Proportion of youth exposed to secondhand smoke or vape | 22.6% The estimate is significantly lower than the California general population. | 32.9% |
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8. Smokefree Homes: Proportion of adults with smokefree homes | 82.9% The estimate is significantly lower than the California general population. | 90.9% |
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Cessation | ||
9. Quitting: Proportion of smokers who tried quitting in the last 12 months | 59.5% | 57.9% |
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10. Doctor Advice to Quit: Proportion of smokers whose doctors advised them to quit | 51.5% | 49.1% |
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Kick It California | Percent of Enrollees | Percent of Smokers |
11. Kick It California Enrollees: Proportion of Kick It California enrollees | 47.3% The estimate is significantly higher than the population’s make-up of California’s adult smokers. | 13.5% of smokers are People With Mental Health Challenges |
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Organizations around the state are working to fix tobacco-related health disparities.
Enhancing wellness at ACW
The Alcoholism Center For Women (ACW) supports and serves women who are working to rebuild their lives in the Los Angeles area, and who are at high risk for starting or continuing tobacco use and/or developing tobacco-related illnesses. ACW’s staff work very hard to help women obtain and maintain sobriety and wellness by providing a smoking cessation program with the tools and support necessary to supplant smoking and increase health.
Champions Tobacco-Related Disparities Reduction Project
Serving Kings County, Champion’s Tobacco-Related Disparities Reduction Project aims to assess and treat tobacco use among our residential clients while they seek treatment for mental health and drug and alcohol abuse to help improve their overall health and well-being, while in a tobacco-free campus.
Smoking Cessation
Fred Brown Recovery Services is a nonprofit 12-step based residential substance abuse treatment program for adult men. We have served our community for over 28 years, helping thousands of men and women recover from the disease of addiction. We offer our clients a smoke-free environment and work to support them to as they seek to also quit using tobacco.
Behavioral Health and Wellness Initiative
The Behaviorial Health and Wellness Initiative from UC San Francisco works to ensure equal access to tobacco cessation (quit) services for all Californians, including those with behavioral health conditions. The Initiative aims to integrate cessation services and smoke-free grounds with all behavioral health providers, and ultimately reduce smoking among those with mental health and addictions.
Wellness Quality Improvement Project
Amity Amistad de Los Angeles provides support and care for people working to to rebuild their lives and survive addiction. Along with other interventions such as exercise and health classes and gardening opportunities, the organization helps people to replace negative tobacco habits with healthy habits that can be sustained indefinitely.
Walter's House Initiative to Reduce Health Related Disparities
The goal of Walter’s House Initiative to Reduce Health Related Disparities is to adopt and implement policies to assess and treat tobacco use among our residential treatment clients in Yolo County, and to provide a tobacco-free campus and wellness activities to support a tobacco-free environment.
Janus Tobacco Project
Janus provides supportive, hope-inspiring and successful treatment services to those battling acoholism in a professional and compassionate environment while assisting individuals and families on their journey toward wellness and recovery. The Janus Tobacco Project aims to provide tobacco quit services and support in a tobacco-free campus.
A Story of Inequity
Tobacco’s impact on health disparities in California
For decades, the tobacco industry has aggressively targeted California’s diverse communities with predatory practices. Internal documents from Big Tobacco outline their strategies – many of which are shocking attempts to peddle deadly products by way of product discounts and manipulative advertising. They even gave away free products to youth in the past. These tactics masquerade as support for communities under the guise of cultural celebration.
Unfortunately, the tactics have worked. Big Tobacco aggressively targeted communities and, as a result, some populations have higher rates of tobacco use, experience greater secondhand smoke exposure at work and at home, and have higher rates of tobacco-related disease than the general population.1
Addressing tobacco-related health inequities is key to California’s efforts to fight tobacco, our state’s number one cause of preventable death and disease.2 Tobacco use, pricing, and its impact across California were analyzed where significant disparities were found across various populations. See how Big Tobacco affects each community in the Nation’s most diverse state.