In honor of this momentous event, we selected three of our most recent newsletter subscribers to highlight on our website:
Rachel Freeman, Tobacco Control Program Supervisor, Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment
Rachel Freeman is currently working on a tobacco retailer licensing campaign in the city of Greeley, Colorado, and she also does a lot of work on preventing and reducing youth access to tobacco. An active Greeley youth coalition, Preventing Addiction Caused by Tobacco (PACT) Youth Advocates, has been a partner in the retailer licensing campaign, as has theTobacco Free Coalition of Weld County. Freeman and her team have used CounterTobacco.org primarily for youth access work and licensing. In addition, the PACT Youth Advocates have used CounterTobacco.org's "POS Scavenger Hunt" to collect some local data to give them a baseline on what the tobacco retail environment looks like in Greeley.
Veronica Johnson, Director of Communications Institute for Health Research and Policy.
Based at the University of Illinois at Chicago,the Institute for Health Research and Policy (IHRP) is the campus incubator for multidisciplinary research addressing the leading causes of chronic disease, premature death, and health disparities in the U.S., especially by increasing health-promoting behaviors. One of their main focuses is tobacco research and using policy to improve health behavior and the health of communities. They also love CounterTobacco.org’s media gallery and have used images from it on the Health Media Collaboratory blog and in their IHRP newsletter.
Debra Levi, Community Health Education Specialist
Mohave County Health Department
In her position at the Mohave County, AZ Department of Public Health in their Tobacco Use and Chronic Disease Prevention Program, Debra Levi works with a youth group called Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) in Lake Havasu City, which is currently campaigning to get parks in the city to go smoke-free. Levi is also working with a local community college to implement the same smoke-free policies. The youth group also works with the AZ Attorney General’s office and the FDA to complete compliance checks at local tobacco retailers. Levi began her position in Mohave County, AZ, this past June. Previously, she worked on tobacco policy in the Los Angeles area on Tobacco Retailer Licensing.