Hispanic populations have limited exposure to anti-tobacco use information and are the target of intensive tobacco industry marketing efforts, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Student Wellness Advocacy Teams, funded by the Pima County Health Department, is a youth coalition that is expanding its work in South Tucson to counteract this issue.
“It’s definitely a huge health program we are trying to fight,” said Youth Coalition Coordinator Ben Naasz. “We outline programs and challenges for SWAT teams at various schools to bring awareness to the cause.”Currently SWAT has 25 coalitions, including S.T.A.R. Academic Center, Desert View High School, Sierra Middle School, and Craycroft Elementary in South Tucson. “A large part of the Sunnyside School District is involved. We have funding for 30 coalitions and are looking to work with more schools in the area,” Naasz said. “Tobacco companies spend millions on ads each year, and regardless of what they say they do target youth,” he added.
There’s a reason companies target the young. “Companies appeal to youth to try and lock in a preference for their product at a young age,” said Hope Schau, associate professor of marketing at the University of Arizona. Advertising also can affect youth who are coming from a place where English is not the main language in their home or community, she said.
Ads for products like tobacco that require warning information may not translate to Hispanic youth, Schau said. “If an ad is written in English they may not be able to read the text and understand it at the same level as an English speaker,” she explained.
“A lot of kids don’t realize cigarettes are bad for them until after they start smoking,” Reina Tacho, 18, said. Tacho said she knows a lot of people who smoke, even if they’re too young. “My friends, my cousins, my brother…they all smoke,” she explained. The youngest age she’s heard of friends starting to smoke was at age 12. “Their parents smoke or a friend’s mom and they’ll take the cigarettes and go hide and smoke them.”
In an Arizona high school risk survey for 2009, the number of Hispanic students who had smoked a cigarette before the age of 13 was 10 percent higher than that of white students, according to the CDC. Hispanic students were also 6.9 percent higher than white students on numbers for first time alcohol consumption before age 13.“If students are in a school district that is without the bells and whistles, just focused on the basics, then those kids won’t have the same understanding of how to read ads and recognize their persuasiveness,” Schau said.
Students in SWAT are given media assignments and challenged to make public service announcements, Naasz said. “The PSA allow them to show the persuasiveness behind tobacco ads and encourage anti tobacco messages,” he added.
“Tobacco companies need young new smokers to replace the ones that are dropping dead,” Naasz said. “It’s sad but it’s true.”
SWAT is currently partnered with Communities Putting Prevention to Work to try and get more funding to expand their youth coalition program. SWAT is trying to get Pueblo Magnet High School back on board after losing their liaison when budget cuts caused staffing changes at the high school, Naasz explained. “We hope to reunite with Pueblo Magnet and get them signed back on.”
