Findings suggest that there is low compliance with the university's smoking policy. The described project may be repeated by students at other universities as a method to advocate for policy change.

Although intrapersonal factors influence health literacy, the sociocultural environment of college can also foster or hinder college students' health literacy.

Racial disparities in tobacco-related death and disease persist. Despite evidence of disparities in exposure to tobacco retailers and point-of-sale advertising, little is known about the extent to which tobacco advertisements within African American communities use three prominent messaging strategies: reassure use is safe despite health risks, redirect attention from health risks to other product features, or incite bravery to use despite health risks. Using a multistage design, we examined tobacco advertisements at 24 retail stores listed on Countertools.org StoreMapper within 15 census tracts where roughly 74% of the population was African American. After confirming interrater reliability, trained data collectors assessed messaging strategy (reassurance, misdirection of attention, or inducement to bravery) usage in ads (n = 165) for various brands (e.g., Newport, Swisher Sweets, Blu) and whether strategies varied by product type (e.g., cigarettes, nonlarge cigar, e-cigarettes). Chi-square analysis of 165 advertisements revealed that the misdirection of attention strategy was used more often than reassurance or inducement to bravery. Tobacco advertisement messaging strategies also varied by product type, with misdirection of attention used more frequently in cigarette and nonlarge cigar advertisements and reassurance used more frequently in e-cigarette advertisements. Cigarette and nonlarge cigar advertisement messages prey on African American communities by redirecting their focus from consequences toward favorable product attributes. Additionally, reassurance messaging may misconstrue risks associated with e-cigarettes; therefore, we should vigilantly monitor e-cigarette trends among this population. Countering misleading messages and advocating policies regarding advertisement content and density within African American communities could help reduce health disparities.

Context: Structural racism, a fundamental cause of health inequities, must be dismantled to fulfill societyʼs interest in ensuring conditions in which all people have opportunities conducive to health. Correspondingly, the Ten Essential Public Health Services center equity, and Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) accreditation criteria require public health students to learn about racism. However, little guidance is provided to help faculty empower future generations of public health professionals to challenge it. Program: In response to the 2020 murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, faculty at UNC Greensboro denounced racism and recommitted to anti-racist pedagogy and praxis. In this article, we discuss integrated ways a graduate-level public health assessment and planning course empowered students to name structural racism, understand how it operates, and collaborate for action. Implementation: Specifically, we highlight (1) our use of the book The Color of Law as means to understand racism as a structural intervention; (2) the Harvard Case Teaching Method as an organizing framework to make the classroom a critically engaged democratic setting; (3) change experts from local health and nonprofit organizations engaged in policy making to address social determinants and disparities resulting from structural racism (eg, housing, health care access, food insecurity); and (4) engagement with a minority-owned nonprofit to allow for practice applying knowledge and skills to address local inequities. Discussion: Our 4-pronged pedagogical approach provides an innovative, tangible example for other public health programs as they reflect upon academic institutions' unique power and role in addressing the public health crisis of structural racism.