Quit Smoking Along Your Path

Health literacy is defined as “the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.”
Despite the gravity of these essential skills, the health literacy competency rate in the United States is only 12%. It is no secret that rural America suffers from low health literacy, as evidenced by its high rates of poor health and chronic disease (JMS, 2025) Retrieved, 2025 <WMJ>

Chronic diseases are the leading cause of illness, disability, and death in America.
Most chronic diseases are caused by a short list of risk factors: smoking, poor nutrition, physical inactivity, and excessive alcohol use.
Some groups are more affected than others because of factors that limit their ability to make healthy choices.
Cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States, and over 16 million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking.
Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Cigarette smoking is a major public health concern, with over 16 million Americans living with a smoking-related disease.
Smoking and secondhand smoke exposure cause over 480,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.
Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body and causes many diseases.
Quitting smoking lowers the risk for early death and of developing smoking-related diseases.