Cross Cultural Collaboration

Within tobacco control, diversity is the representation of diverse community members in tobacco control meetings, activities or programs. Better still, is inclusivity, or the inclusion of diverse community members in a substantive way, in the planning and decision-making process of any organization's goals, mission and objectives. Both diversity and inclusivity are essential in working toward parity, which can be defined as being equal in the process, as well as the outcomes attained in tobacco control. Achieving parity means increasing participation and inclusion of diverse communities in critical decision-making within tobacco control organizations and equity in resources (i.e. capacity building, funding opportunities, and services) to address the disproportional use of tobacco and exposure to secondhand smoke.

In 2002, members of APPEAL, NAATPN, NLTCN and other individuals participated in the independent Task Force on Advancing Parity and Leadership in Tobacco Control for Priority Populations to produce "Moving Toward Health: Achieving Parity through Tobacco Control for All Communities".  The kit addresses the tobacco and health inequities faced by communities of color and other priority populations.

Recently, two National Networks collaborated in Puerto Rico - the National Latino Tobacco Control Network (NLTCN) and the National LGBT Tobacco Control Network. During Puerto Rico's Gay Pride festivities this year, volunteers from both organizations distributed health and social justice resources, gathered information for various surveys, including a health tobacco survey, and collected signatures for a petition to create official links between the Puerto Rican Department of Justice, the Police Department, and local Puerto Rican LGBT groups. The two Networks also participated in the Puerto Rico Tobacco Free Coalition meeting where they were able to bring the LGBT perspective to the agenda and discuss the inclusion of gender and sexual orientation questions in island-wide surveillance surveys. For a detailed a report on the collaboration, please click here. To view the report in Spanish, please click here.