About the Campaign

Tobacco use is still the leading preventable cause of death and disease in the United States.

• Cigarette smoking alone kills more than 480,000 Americans each year.¹
• 16 million Americans are living with at least one serious smoking-related disease.¹
• For every person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness.¹
• Unfortunately, an estimated 30.8 million adults in the United States still smoke cigarettes.²
• Cigarette smoking cost the United States more than $600 billion in 2018, including more than $240 billion in healthcare spending and nearly $372 billion in lost productivity.^1,3,4,5

Learn more about how smoking and secondhand smoke affect specific groups.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the first-ever federally funded national tobacco education campaign—Tips From Former Smokers^® (Tips^®) – in March 2012.

The Tips campaign profiles real people from many different backgrounds living with serious long-term health effects from smoking and secondhand smoke exposure. Tips also features compelling stories of the toll these smoking-related conditions have taken on family members.

Tips ads focus on many health issues caused by, associated with, or made worse by smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, including:

• Cancer (lung, throat, head and neck, colorectal)
• Heart disease
• Stroke
• Asthma
• Diabetes
• Buerger’s disease
• COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)
• Gum disease
• Preterm birth
• HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) complications
• Vision loss and blindness
• Dual use (the current use of both cigarettes and another tobacco product)
• Mental health conditions (depression and anxiety)

The Tips campaign uses approaches to address health disparities in pursuit of health equity by increasing the reach, representation, receptivity, and accessibility of smoking cessation messages. Tips also increases awareness of free quit-smoking resources among adults—no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make.

Specifically, the Tips campaign:

• Develops evidence-based smoking cessation messages and includes people in the campaign that reflect the diversity of those suffering from smoking-related health conditions and experiences.
• Places Tips ads on a variety of media channels to reach communities and groups with high levels of smoking and smoking-related diseases, including those populations who are disproportionally affected by tobacco use.
• Partners with healthcare professionals so they can encourage their smoking patients to quit for good.
• Makes Tips materials available for free or reduced cost to state and local health programs and community-based organizations.
• Translates Tips information and resources into additional languages, uses culturally appropriate language, and creates materials that are accessible for people with disabilities.

From 2012–2018, CDC estimates that more than 16.4 million people who smoke attempted to quit and approximately 1 million successfully quit because of the Tips campaign.⁶

To read published articles about the impact of the Tips campaign, please visit the Tips Impact and Results web page.

Scientific studies have shown that hard-hitting media campaigns are effective in helping people quit smoking. Study results suggest that emotionally evocative tobacco education media campaigns featuring graphic images of the health effects of smoking can increase quitline calls and website visits, and that these campaigns’ effects decrease rapidly once they are discontinued.

The Tips campaign is based on an in-depth review of research conducted in multiple U.S. states and other countries, as well as extensive campaign development research and testing.

Through audience testing, we learned that most people who smoke already knew that cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke can cause death. But the fear of dying from smoking-related causes did not motivate people to take action to quit. What did motivate people to quit smoking was witnessing the difficulty of living with a chronic, long-term, and debilitating smoking-related disease and imagining how that could affect their families.