News and Events

The Tobacco Free Partnership of Dixie County Continues its Mission to Reduce the Health Consequences of Tobacco
By Melanie Anderson
April 22, 2019

The mission of the Dixie County Tobacco-Free Partnership is to mobilize community partners to establish long-lasting system and policy changes that promote tobacco-free social norms in order to prevent usage of tobacco products by youth/young adults, encourage and support tobacco cessation, eliminate health hazards of secondhand and third-hand smoke, with the ultimate goal of thereby decreasing the number of deaths due to tobacco products in Dixie County. The Tobacco Free Partnership of Dixie County has held quarterly meeting at the Dixie County High School since 2009. 

The motivation of the partnership members is based on the tobacco use rates in Dixie County. According to the 2018 Florida Tobacco Youth Survey reported 47% of Dixie Youth have tried a tobacco product, 10.8% are current smokeless tobacco users, 13% are current ENDS users, and 9.2% are current cigarette users.  The 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) reported that 23.1% of Dixie County residents were current smokers.  

The partnership works to address their mission of goals by developing and/or sustain core infrastructures of tobacco prevention and control activities, and promote usage of the Florida Quit Your Way Program, in a culturally competent manner to deliver services that include diverse service providers represented in all goal areas.  These service providers, which include Dixie County health department, schools public and private, businesses and business organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, health care systems and providers, law enforcement, local and statewide non-profit agencies such as the Dixie Rotary, the Dixie Anti-Drug Coalition, and others are recommended by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2014 Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs (CDC Best Practices)

GOALS OF THE Dixie County TOBACCO-FREE PARTNERSHIP include:

This year the partnership had a new Chairwoman, Mrs. Lola Butler.  Mrs. Butler has attended every quarterly partnership meeting, facilitated each meeting agenda, promoted the partnership policy work and supported many of the SWAT activities.  The Co-Chair, Mrs. Angie Land continued in her position for the past three years.  The partnership has a very large, active youth membership.  The youth provide so much information on the increase use of new tobacco products and Electronic Nicotine Delivery Devices (Vaping).  All of the local decision makers appreciate the input on tobacco policies from the youth. 

In 2018-19, the Tobacco Free Partnership sponsored several community events to promote tobacco free policies.  These events include: the Cross City Tree Lighting by the Town of Cross City, the Father/Daughter Dance by the Dixie Rotary, the Dixie Little League Season, and the Cross City Fly-In and Business Expo by the Dixie Chamber of Commerce.  Each event adopted tobacco free venue policies and promoted the policies throughout the events. 

For information on the Tobacco Free Partnership of Dixie County contact Melanie Anderson, the Dixie County Tobacco Prevention Specialist at manderson@quitdoc.com or 352-256-1061