CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA — Tobacco use continues to take a deadly toll in Iowa, killing nearly 5,000 Iowans each year, as state officials and health advocates push new policies they say can reduce smoking and vaping and, in turn, lower cancer rates.
Iowa’s Health Initiative hosted a webinar Wednesday focused on what organizers called evidence-based solutions to reduce tobacco use, with the goal of lowering Iowa’s cancer rate.
Iowa has the nation’s second-highest cancer rate, and more than half of the state’s 99 counties have cancer rates that outpace the national average. In Linn County, there were more than 1,300 new cancer cases between 2017 and 2021…