Members of the Wisconsin African American Tobacco Prevention Network and Wisconsin Tobacco Prevention & Poverty Network FACT groups, based in Milwaukee, traveled to Madison on February 3rd to attend a presentation by filmmaker and national health equity and criminal justice advocate Lincoln Mondy.
During his keynote address, Mondy spoke about how tobacco companies target African Americans with menthol cigarettes. Menthol are easier to start and harder to quit, said Mondy, who created the film Black Lives/Black Lungs.
Recent Wisconsin data shows that 87% of African American smokers smoke menthol cigarettes, compared to 40% of White smokers. Each year 45,000 African Americans die in the United States from tobacco related causes. FACT is Wisconsin’s youth-led tobacco prevention program.
The event was sponsored by the Tobacco Free Columbia Dane County Coalition in its partnership with the Good Start Men’s Health Symposium.
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