The Ricochet Effect: Breaking the Cycle - Tobacco, Truth, and Black Health - A Conversation with Dr. Valerie Yerger (AATCLC) is a critical installment of The Ricochet Effect Podcast that interrogates the structural realities of tobacco use, industry targeting, and health inequities within Black communities. Featuring Dr. Valerie Yerger of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC), this conversation moves beyond surface-level prevention narratives to expose the intentional design of harm.
These episodes (continuums) position tobacco not merely as a public health issue, but as a function of systemic targeting, policy delay, and institutional complicity. Through an evidence-based and community-centered lens, the dialogue examines menthol as a strategic mechanism of addiction, the role of trusted institutions in shaping outcomes, and the persistent fragmentation of systems that should be aligned in advancing equity. Grounded in community-based participatory research (CBPR) and policy translation, challenges listeners to reconsider tobacco prevention as a matter of racial justice, economic consequence, and generational impact. The conversation ultimately reframes intervention not as awareness alone, but as a coordinated disruption of embedded cycles of harm.
Read More: An Analysis of Dr. Valerie Yerger’s Contributions to Tobacco Prevention Research
Find More Information About The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council: https://www.savingblacklives.org/
Find More Information About Project Ricochet: www.projectricochet.org.
Production Attribution: Tom Godell.
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PodcastsIn Continuum 1 of The Ricochet Effect: Breaking the Cycle – Tobacco, Truth, and Black Health, Dr. Abeni El-Amin sits down with Dr. Valerie Yerger of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC) to examine the calculated architecture behind tobacco-related harm in Black communities across the United States.
