RISE – Statewide Rural Coordinating Center
Who We Are
RISE supports rural tobacco projects by leveraging resources, providing leadership training and opportunities, and offering educational materials specially designed to assist rural communities.
Rural communities are full of hardworking people who value strength and independence. Tobacco companies understand this, so they package and advertise their deadly products to play to values of self-reliance and resiliency with images such as cowboys, hunters and race car drivers.
Big Tobacco takes advantage of weaker tobacco licensing laws in rural communities–aggressively marketing cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products, like chew.
GOALS
(1) Create and disseminate a Rural Communities Policy Platform to policymakers, community champions, and key stakeholders
(2) Develop new tobacco control leaders from among California’s rural
communities
(3) Build capacity within rural communities to engage in tobacco control policy advocacy through a series of Tobacco Control Learning Institutes
RISE’s Policy Platform on Reducing the Impact of Tobacco on Rural Communities
RISE’s Statement on White Privilege, Social Justice and Equity in Rural California
Resources
Follow Us
Need help quitting?
The California Smokers’ Helpline (Kick It CA) offers free telephone counseling and materials to quit smoking, as well as free nicotine patches to eligible callers.
Resource Categories
Click a link below to scroll to that category.
Educational Materials by RISE
Tobacco Education Clearinghouse of California
TECC has a number of educational materials for rural populations available for free download.
Rural Tobacco Prevention Resources
Find information about rural communities and best practices to reduce and prevent the use of commercial tobacco.
- Advancing Tobacco Control and Prevention in Rural America (National Network of Public Health Institutes)
- Cutting Tobacco's Rural Roots: Tobacco Use in Rural Communities (Used by permission of the American Lung Association)
- Kern County’s Tobacco Retailer Licensing Program (Public Health Law Center, American Lung Association in California)
- Rural Tobacco Control and Prevention Toolkit (Rural Health Information Hub)
- Rural Communities Data (Tobacco Control Evaluation Center)
- State of Tobacco Control 2021 – California (American Lung Association in California)
- Story of Inequity: Rural Communities (Undo.)
- Tobacco Control Efforts in Rural America: Perspectives from Local Health Departments (National Association of County & City Health Officials)
- Cancer Statistics and Reports (California Cancer Registry)
Rural Community Success Stories
- Humboldt County Adopts TRL Policy (February 2024)
- Del Norte Youth Create Momentum for TRL (April 2023)
- Gridley Passes Smokefree Parks Ordinance (March 2023)
- Aria Community Health Center Goes Smokefree (November 2022)
- A Healthier Feather River College Campus (December 2021)
- Enloe Tobacco Initiative (November 2021)
- Farmers’ Markets Are Healthier in Red Bluff and Chico (May 2021)
- Chowchilla Takes Huge Step to Healthier Outdoor Recreation (March 2021)
- Mendocino County Bans the Sale of Flavored Tobacco (November 2020)
- Crescent City Passes a Smokefree Multi-Unit Housing Policy (November 2020)
- Colusa County & City of Williams General Plans Prioritize Health (June 2020)
- Oroville’s Flavored Tobacco Ban Success Story (January 2020)
The Environment & Tobacco
Learn how commercial tobacco products, including cigarettes and vape devices, harm the environment through production, use, and improper disposal.
- Come Clean Big Tobacco (Tobacco Free California)
- Commercial Tobacco Pollution (Public Health Law Center)
- Environment (Undo.)
- Secondhand Dangers (Undo.)
- Vape Waste (Undo.)
- Recorded Webinars – Toxic Tobacco Trash (RISE)
- A toxic, plastic problem: E-cigarette waste and the environment (Truth Initiative)
Tobacco Topic Areas
Find information about issues related to commercial tobacco use, including secondhand smoke, e-cigarettes/vaping, and more.
Big Tobacco’s Targeting
Learn about the tactics the tobacco industry uses to target rural communities and how this targeting has impacted rates of tobacco use.
Tobacco & the Retail Environment
Learn about the tactics used by the tobacco industry to make their products easier to purchase and policy options to counteract these tactics.
Media & Communications for Tobacco Prevention
Find resources on the best practices of creative effective messaging about tobacco use for rural communities.
- Dissemination of Rural Health Research: A Toolkit (Rural Health Research Gateway)
- Emerging Issues in Commercial Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation Social Media Toolkit 2020 (George Washington University Cancer Center)
- How to Engage Rural Communities with Strategic Communications (Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America)
Chewing Tobacco & Emerging Products
Find information about chew, cessation resources, as well as other emerging tobacco products.
- Chewing Tobacco Helpline & Quit Information (California Smoker’s Helpline)
- Other Tobacco Products (Undo.)
- Nicotine Pouch Unit Sales in the US, 2016-2020 (Adolescent Medicine – JAMA)
- Trends of cigarette smoking and smokeless tobacco use among US firefighters and law enforcement personnel, 1992–2019 (American Journal of Industrial Medicine)