Wellness Guide: Smoking Cessation

What You Should Know

• Lesbians, also referred to as women who partner with women (WPW), are more likely to be current and former smokers than heterosexual women. This difference is partly due to the additional stress of living in a sometimes hostile, intolerant society.

• 64% of African American WPW who participated in a national study reported being current or former smokers.

• Similar numbers of African American same gender loving women (20.9%) and heterosexual women (21.3%) report being a current smoker.

• Women who partner with women tend to smoke more than heterosexual.

• Both lesbians and African Americans women have been specifically targeted by the tobacco industry in advertisements.

• Smoking is a major risk to health and a leading cause of lung cancer.

• More women die from lung cancer than from breast cancer (ACS). In fact it is the leading cause of cancer death among women.

• Smoking leads to uterine cervical, mouth and throat cancers as well ass heart disease, bronchitis and emphysema.

• African American women have a harder time quitting than other women but it can be done. You will see the benefits of quitting smoking no matter when you quit. Although the sooner you quit smoking the better – it's never too late to quit.

• African American women who quit live longer than women who don't quit.

• Quitting cigarette smoking will lower your risk of heart disease, cancer, and stroke.

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