The Task Force for Tobacco-Free Women and Girls is a network of organizations and individuals across New York State working to end the devastating impact of tobacco-related diseases on the lives of women. Tobacco companies exploit the interests of girls and young women to lure them into experimenting and becoming addicted to products that cause them harm them in many ways.

The Task Force aims to:

• Raise awareness of the ways in which women and girls are targeted by the promotion of tobacco products.
• Encourage women's and girls' organizations to give priority to tobacco use prevention and cessation.
• Help implement evidence-based women-centered strategies, programs, policies and services to reduce tobacco use among women and girls.
• Increase awareness of the effects of tobacco use on women's health by disseminating information on current health trends and tobacco use rates.
• Maintain membership and perspective reflecting the diversity of New York State women.

In 1995 the Task Force consulted women smokers across the state and released "Women Talk to Women About Smoking," the first paper of its kind to address the problem of smoking from women's vantage. The Task Force then set out to conduct programs based on the strategies identified in that report. The Task Force has created and distributed prevention resources, such as the Anatomy of a Woman Smoker poster, presented at national events, funded mini-grants to community groups for activities that advance Task Force goals and fostered the development of a science-based computer software program that simulates the premature facial aging effects of smoking. That project was reported in the journal Tobacco Control and highlighted in the British Medical Journal.

Recent Task Force projects include the "Steps Toward Success" recognition of model programs that encourage women and girls to be tobacco-free; collaboration with the WIC Nutrition Program and the New York State Smokers' Quitline to help young mothers escape nicotine addiction; and an initiative to encourage physicians, cosmetologists and others who serve women to provide only periodicals that are free of tobacco promotion in their waiting areas. The Task Force communicates and collaborates with the other organizations to develop synergy among our related programs. As an authoritative voice on women, girls and tobacco issues, the Task Force has provided presentations for the Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the First Women’s Rights Convention, the New York State Women's Legislative Caucus, the Susan B. Anthony Foundation's Women Leading Local Governments Initiative Conference and several National Conferences on Tobacco Or Health.

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