Meet our staff: Beth Turner, Business Manager
Beth Turner is Business Manager at Counter Tools. Beth has worked in the nonprofit sector for years and is passionate about health equity and volunteering in her community. Learn more about Beth’s background in her staff [...]
Reflecting on health equity and our work in 2020
2020 was a challenging year and inspired us to rethink our understanding of inequities, strive to learn more, and be better. In this post we look back at a year focused on health equity and celebrate [...]
Success Story: Using Local Data to Pass Policies for Tobacco Prevention in Golden Valley, Minnesota
We have a new success story about one of our partners that serves as a great example of a local area passing strong tobacco prevention policies. In 2019, the city of Golden Valley in Hennepin County, [...]
UNC and PHLC release Policy Playbook For E-cigarettes
University of North Carolina's Vaping Prevention Resource and Public Health Law Center recently released the Policy Playbook for E-cigarettes. The Playbook provides state and local stakeholders with a framework of policies and practices to pursue, guidelines [...]
Meet our staff: Mollie Mayfield, Senior Project Director and Managing Editor, CounterTobacco.org
Mollie Mayfield is Senior Project Director and Managing Editor of CounterTobacco.org at Counter Tools. She loves being inspired by people that work to improve the health of their communities and introducing folks to point-of-sale tobacco control [...]
Considering social vulnerability and health equity in COVID-19 vaccine allocation
Health equity is being considered in discussions of vaccine allocation for perhaps the first time in our history. Official recommendations for vaccine distribution may include the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index as a way of incorporating the [...]
Tobacco Retailer Licensing Considerations for Rural Communities
In the United States, rates of tobacco use are higher in rural than urban populations, yet rural communities often lack the tobacco control policy coverage present in more urban areas. While there are several reasons why [...]
Strategies to Create Healthier Food Retail Environments
Many neighborhoods lack access to traditional supermarkets and other sources of fresh, healthy food, especially at an affordable price. Making healthy choices easier in the retail environment has the potential to make a significant impact on [...]
Letter to FDA on Prohibiting Menthol Cigarettes
The undersigned public health and medical organizations write to urge the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to grant the pending Citizen Petition referenced above and commence the requested rulemaking to prohibit menthol as a characterizing flavor [...]
Meet our staff: Maria Julian, Executive Director
Maria Julian is the Executive Director at Counter Tools. She loves working to bring positive change to critical issues in place-based public health. Learn more about Maria's background and what inspires her in her staff profile [...]
Counter Tools releases stance on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Counter Tools has released a stance that defines how we approach equity, diversity, and inclusion with our current partners and clients and those we have the opportunity to work with in the future. Included is our [...]
Counter Tobacco Podcast: Equity in Point-of-Sale Tobacco Control
This episode is all about working towards health equity with point-of-sale tobacco control. We discuss some of the drivers behind inequities in tobacco use and related morbidities and mortality, and how we can use a pro-equity [...]
Tobacco Control Enforcement for Racial Equity – A joint statement from public health organizations
This fall, Counter Tools joined a working group of public health advocates to develop a collective statement on equitable tobacco control enforcement. More than 40 public health organizations endorsed and released the statement this month, titled [...]
Inspiration from a SOPHE webinar on equity and anti-racism in public health
Systemic inequities such as racism impact individuals across the social determinants of health and create unequal opportunities for individuals to stay healthy. In an engaging webinar from SOPHE, the panelists shared insights on racism in the [...]
Reflecting on Indigenous Peoples’ Day and how to become a better ally
This week marked Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which recognizes Native Americans as the first inhabitants of the Americas. In this tumultuous year as we have renewed our focus on inequities and health disparities, we must be sure [...]
Trust for America’s Health releases recommendations to address obesity crisis
Access to healthy food or safe places to be active is inconsistent across communities and research shows that socioeconomic factors including poverty and race/ethnicity contribute to an increased rate of obesity. The State of Obesity 2020 [...]
