Achieving Health Equity: Sātanding Together Against Commercial Tobacco & Nicotine, 2025ā2026
Progress Reports for Priority Populations
Download Progress Reports for Priority Populations (PDF).
For purposes of this Plan, priority populations are groups of people who are disproportionately targeted by the tobacco industry, use tobacco at higher-than-average rates, experience greater exposure to secondhand or thirdhand smoke and vape aerosol, or have higher rates of tobacco-related disease. Priority populations include but are not limited to the following: racial and ethnic minority communities, sexual and gender minority groups, people of low socioeconomic status, people with poor mental health or substance use disorders, rural residents, school-age youth, and military personnel and veterans. The agencies that TEROC advises may identify additional priority populations by applying the criteria above and by considering factors such as historical and ongoing patterns of bias and exclusion that disproportionately affect certain communities.
This section of the TEROC Plan provides progress reports for multiple priority populations, including several that are specified as targets for tobacco education programs in the California Health and Safety Code.1 The progress reports provide current (past 30-day) tobacco use rates based on data from 2016ā2023 for California adults (age 18+) and youth (grades 10 and 12) for the following populations:
- Statewide adults and youth
- Hispanic/Latino adults and youth
- African American or Black adults and youth
- Asian adults and youth
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander adults and youth
- American Indian or Alaska Native adults and youth
- LGBTQ+ adults and youth
- Rural adults and youth
- Low-income adults
- Adults and youth with poor mental health
- Pregnant women (including mothers of all ages)
To view the figures in this section, click Progress Reports for Priority Populations (PDF)ā.
Download the full 2025ā2026 TEROC Plan (PDF, 4.9 MB).
Reference
1 California Health and Safety Code Ā§ 104360.āāā