North American Chinatown Smoke Free Day 

Free Quit Smoking Resources | Free Downloadable Posters

One of the biggest public health threats of our time, the tobacco epidemic causes 6 million deaths each year. 5 million of those are the direct result of tobacco use and more than 60,000 deaths are of non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke. 

The United States and Canada have a large and continuously growing population of Chinese immigrants. Chinese Canadians are the second largest visible minority group in Canada. Chinese Americans compose the largest ethnic group (23%) of Asian Americans, the fastest growing racial and immigrant group in the U.S.

China has the largest number of tobacco smokers in the world—over 300 million. The majority of them (68%) are men. Of the male smokers in China, 2 out of 3 started smoking before the age of 20. Since 2010, over 1 million people have died from smoking-related causes in China each year.

Smoking not only directly harms smokers, but also their families and loved ones. Secondhand smoke, a combination of smoke from a burning cigarette and breathed out by smokers, can be deadly for nonsmokers. Over time, it can cause cancer, heart disease, breathing problems, infertility, and other serious health problems. Secondhand smoke is especially dangerous for pregnant women and children.

North American Chinatown Smoke Free Day (NACSFD) started in 2016, after a discussion with Charles B. Wang Community Health Center that noted alarming statistics affecting Chinese males in New York City. Data showed that overall lung cancer deaths were declining in New York City in all other racial group while there was an alarming 70% increase in Chinese New Yorkers. CAMS and CBWCHC drafted a statement of needs and applied for a grant to Federation of Chinese American Medical and Chinese Canadian Medical Societies Foundation to start the NACSFD project to raise awareness of smoking related risks, encourage community members to seek smoking cessation services and mobilize local communities to take action against this health disparity affecting the Chinese community.

NACSFD is an event that aims to raise awareness of smoking-related risks, encourage community members to seek quit smoking services, and mobilize local communities to take action against this health disparity. Cities that have participated in NACSFD are New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and Toronto. It is held on the last Monday of September, but we have organized events around that date to promote cigarette cessation. For the communities, we have provided bilingual workshops, health fairs, screening including pulmonary testing, quit smoking resources such as bilingual American Smokers Quitline (ASQ), Chinese radio and television programs. For the professionals we have organized webinars on how to motivate patients to quit, medication guides, billing information and guidelines for low dose CT screening.

North American Chinatown Smoke Free Day is an activity of the Federation of Chinese American and Chinese Canadian Medical Societies (FCMS).The NACSFD Health fair event in New York is co-hosted by the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center (CBWCHC), Chinese American Medical Society (CAMS) with support from organizations such as Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE), Asian Smokers’ Quitline, Coalition for Asian-American IPA, Inc. (CAIPA), Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation (CPLDC), Chinese American Nurses Association (CANA) and more.