News
Visual shows danger of tobacco use
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Columbus Telegram
The small flags posted in the ground at West Park Elementary School serve as a visible reminder of how deadly tobacco use can be.
A total of 1,200 red flags, some with stickers reading “Please don’t smoke,” were put there by students in the after-school program at the school Monday. It is a project by the East Central District Health Department in partnership with Tobacco Free Platte County.
The number of flags represent the number of people who die each day in the United States due to tobacco related illnesses.
Jamie Rodriguez, tobacco prevention coordinator at the health department, said it is important reach out to youth to educate them on the dangers of tobacco. Doing that earlier is better.
Studies and statistics show that children as young as 8 are trying smoking and other drugs, she said.
Tobacco use here among youth is on par with the state. The health department’s four-county coverage shows similar rates of tobacco use among students in middle school and high school compared to the state.
In Platte County, a slightly higher number of high-school seniors, 54 percent, use tobacco than others in Nebraska, 49 percent, according to a Comprehensive Health Needs Assessment put out by the health department in 2012. Use among other grades is lower verses the state.
Nance County school children have a much higher rate of tobacco use among students in grade 10 within the health department’s coverage area, which also includes Colfax and Boone counties. In that grade, 67 percent report using tobacco compared to 31 percent in Platte and 32 percent in Nebraska.
Nance also has more sixth-graders using tobacco with 13 percent. No students in 6th grade reported using tobacco in Boone and Platte, but 7 percent in Colfax did, which is slightly higher than the 6 percent for Nebraska.
Colfax does have the most students in 8th grade using tobacco. Among those in that grade, 28 percent have reported using tobacco compared to just 7 percent in Boone, 10 percent in Platte, 13 percent in Nance and 17 percent in Nebraska.
Fewer people, though, have been using tobacco in the health department’s area and in the state in recent years.
In 2007, about 20 percent of Nebraska’s population reported they smoked tobacco and 16 percent of people in the counties covered by the health department said the same. In 2009, both numbers dipped. The state dropped to 17 percent, while the health department’s area went down to 15 percent.
The health department uses grant money to help fund anti-smoking educational programs in its coverage area. Another flag program will be held at Columbus Middle School next week, and a similar one was held in Schuyler.
Flags for the project are donated by Black Hills Energy.
