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Tobacco Prevention & Control

Hancock County Community Health focuses on preventing the initiation of tobacco use by youth, helps promote cessation by adults and youth, works on eliminating exposure to second hand smoke and helps to educate underprivileged populations about the harmful effects of tobacco. These services are provided through prevention, education and cessation activities.

Hancock County Community Health goes into schools to educate students on the dangers of tobacco and secondhand smoke and helps students stop smoking. We participate in school health fairs, community events and health fairs, coalitions, career fairs, and any other opportunity where we can prevent the use of tobacco.

Hancock County Health System - Community Health educates and keeps providers up to date on needed information and we work with businesses on education and prevention.

Facts

  • Every eight seconds someone in the world dies from a tobacco related illness/disease.
  • Smoking is the #1 preventable cause of premature death in the United States.
  • On average, smokers die nearly seven years earlier than nonsmokers. Smoking is responsible for one out of five American deaths.
  • In the U.S., smoking kills more people than cocaine, heroin, alcohol, fire automobile accidents, homicides, suicides, and AIDS combined.
  • Reports of the Surgeon General conclude that smoking cigarettes causes heart disease, lung and esophageal cancer, and chronic lung disease. Cigarette smoking contributes to cancer of the bladder, pancreas, and kidney. Consequences of using smokeless tobacco include cancer of the gum, mouth, pharynx, larynx, and esophagus.
  • Men who smoke increase their risk of death from lung cancer by more than 22 times and from bronchitis and emphysema by nearly 10 times. Women who smoke increase their risk of dying from lung cancer by nearly 12 times and the risk of dying from bronchitis and emphysema by more than 10 times. Smoking triples the risk of dying from heart disease among middle-aged men and women.
  • About 10 million people in the United States have died from causes attributed to smoking (including heart disease, emphysema, and other respiratory disease) since the first Surgeon General's report on smoking and health in 1964--2 million of these deaths were the result of lung cancer alone.
  • 90% of adult smokers are addicted to tobacco before they reach the age of 18; 50% before the age of 14; currently the average age of initiation to tobacco is age 11.
  • 48 million adults smoke in the U.S. (22.9% of the population, overall) 33%of youth currently smoke.
  • According to the CDC survey, there are 1,136,900 smokers in New Jersey (19.5% of the state population). 38% of youths in grades 9-12 smoke in New Jersey. 

Quitting Tobacco Use


Hancock County Community Health Services offers 1:1 or small group cessation classes for people who want to quit smoking using the Mayo Clinic Model. There is a cost for this service and it includes four sessions, with two follow-up sessions and two phone calls. Hancock County Community Health also offers businesses classes on how to quit smoking at their worksite.

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Resources to quit smoking


  • HCHS Community Health – We provide 1:1 and small group smoking cessation classes. Call 1-800-775-6180 or 641-923-3676 for more information.
  • Quitline Iowa: 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-8669) 
  • Smoke-Free Families through North Iowa Community Action - This program provides services to: adult tobacco users who reside in households with children under the age of 6, pregnant women and their adult household members who are tobacco users, and qualifying individuals who reside in Cerro Gordo, Hancock or Worth Counties. They also provide free nicotine replacement and free one-on-one support. Call 1-800-657-5856

Secondhand Smoke


Secondhand smoke is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. Secondhand smoke contains more than 250 chemicals known to be toxic or cancer causing, including formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic, ammonia, and hydrogen cyanide.

Secondhand smoke is also called environmental tobacco smoke (ETS); exposure to secondhand smoke is called involuntary smoking, or passive smoking.

It is not easy to avoid secondhand smoke because about one in four people smoke. Secondhand smoke causes about 3,000 deaths each year from lung cancer in non-smokers.

For more information, contact Kelly Hutcheson, HCHS Community Health: 641-923-3676