UW-CTRI Employee Wins National Health-Advocacy Award

OSHKOSH, Wis. – UW-CTRI Outreach Specialist Roger Dier has received the national Amy Hertz Advocacy Award for his work to help Northeast Wisconsin residents quit chewing tobacco and to encourage youth to never start.  

The Amy Hertz Award honors an individual or organization exemplifying outstanding
advocacy and education in smokeless tobacco prevention and control. The award is named after the former California deputy attorney general, an expert on the Smokeless Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, who died in February 2007.

Dier, a former smoker and tobacco chewer, works with healthcare providers to encourage them to follow the latest research and best practices to help their patients quit smoking or use chewing tobacco. Dier serves as the outreach specialist for the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI) in northeast Wisconsin. Dier created StopSpitUSA-talk, a national list serve dedicated to reducing the harmful effects of spit tobacco through collaboration, education and advocacy. StopSpitUSA-talk serves 120 members from 28 states and Canada.

Roger Dier

Dier has also collaborated with state partners and oral cancer survivor Gruen Von Behrens to reach out to youth about the dangers of chewing tobacco. Von Behrens, a former chewer who survived cancer and endured 34 surgeries on his face and neck, recently encouraged 3,000 northeast Wisconsin students in 14 schools to never experiment with tobacco.

Dier graduated from Minnesota State-Mankato with a bachelor’s degree in English and earned his master’s degree in Applied Leadership in Teaching and Learning at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. For more on Dier, and how to reach him, click here.