News and Events
Florida Department of Health Release 2022 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey Results
December 1, 2022
The Florida health department has released the most recent Florida Youth Tobacco Survey results this past month, highlighting the local youth’s tobacco use compared to the rest of the state as well as other Florida counties. Done every two years this is a great tool for local decision makers to use in efforts to understand the youths use, or attempted use, of tobacco products such as cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and the latest trend vaping. Below you can see the numbers:
As listed above you can see the Gilchrist County numbers are still elevated compared to the state average. Though this is not ideal for our community we do see some promise with a drop in all categories of current tobacco users, including cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, and vaping.
Even with the drop 1 out of 4 of our students are still currently using electronic vapor products. With 1 out of 3 of our Gilchrist County students using some form of tobacco product. These numbers are still far too high for school aged children, with the brain not fully developing until your mid-20’s getting hooked on addictive substances such as nicotine can do some damage. Not to mention the other physical harms tobacco use brings to the body; lung, mouth, throat, and your heart are all major body parts that can be affected with long-term use.
As a community we need to see these issues and discuss how best we can combat these issues to ensure future youth growing up in the community do not have these hurdles to overcome. We have made an improvement within the community, and it is a great step forward in the right direction to a brighter healthier future. If you would like to view more data points or other county numbers on the Florida Youth Tobacco Survey, visit floridahealth.gov to access the data.
