VALDOSTA — South Georgia Medical Center and the American Cancer Society host a Great American Smokeout Day event in the SGMC main lobby from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. today.

SGMC hosts the event as part of its ongoing effort to educate the public about the importance of prevention, said Laura Love, SGMC director of community relations.

SGMC’s Pulmonary Services will provide free pulmonary functioning tests, and Dasher Heart Center will offer free blood-pressure tests. The American Cancer Society will be distributing tobacco-related educational brochures and participants can sign up for SGMC’s smoking-cessation classes Freshstart and Getting Ready to Quit, said Valerie L. Swinson, SGMC community health promotions coordinator. Participants will also have the chance to enter a drawing for door prizes, she added.

Tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. Each year, smoking accounts for an estimated 438,000 premature deaths, including 38,000 deaths among nonsmokers as a result of secondhand smoke. Half of all Americans who continue to smoke will die from smoking-related diseases.

The Great American Smokeout was inaugurated in 1976 to inspire and encourage smokers to quit for one day.

At A Glance

• Smoking accounts for $193 billion in annual health-care expenditures and productivity losses.

• Smokers who quit at age 35 gain an average of eight years of life expectancy; those who quit at age 55 gain about five years; and even long-term smokers who quit at 65 gain three years.

• Research shows that people who stop smoking before age 50 can cut their risk of dying in the next 15 years in half compared with those who continue to smoke.

• Ten years after quitting, the lung cancer death rate is about half that of a continuing smoker.

• One million people quit smoking for a day at the 1976 Great American Smokeout event in California.