Ten Year Goal and Contextual Factors

Ensure that every young tobacco user (aged 12–24) has access to appropriate and effective cessation interventions by the year 2010.

The Collaborative recognizes that there is a need to explore and address the cessation needs and interests among different segments of the population of young tobacco users, defined by factors such as:

• Different stages of tobacco use (from experimentation to addiction);
• Varying patterns of regular use (across times of days, days of the week, and seasons of the year);
• Use of different types of tobacco products;
• Different development stages of adolescence;
• Cultural and demographic difference (e.g. gender, race and ethnicity, social groups, and geographic location);
• Differences in life points or settings (e.g. school, college, workplace, incarceration, shelters);
• Co-morbidities with mental health conditions (e.g. attention deficit disorder, depression)
• Use of multiple substances.

In addition, it must be recognized that youth considering quitting do so within the context of other competing needs (e.g. family or living situation) and societal influences (e.g. accessibility to tobacco products). At this time there is scant knowledge relating either personal characteristics or social context to young people’s preferences for or success with different tobacco-use cessation program, services, and approaches. For example, prevention research had clearly demonstrated that societal interventions may be equally or more effective than individual-level interventions in deterring tobacco use, and that individual-level interventions can be more effective when combined with societal interventions. However, knowledge regarding the effectiveness of either individual or societal level cessation interventions represents a significant gap. The Collaborative affirms the need to examine a broad range of possible interventions including individual, interpersonal, and organizational approaches. The Collaborative also encourages the involvement of youth in efforts to reach the objectives articulated here.

In order to reach the ten year goal, a range of needs must be addressed in funding and conducting research, in developing and supporting proven interventions, in implementing and maintaining policy changes, in increasing public awareness of and support for youth tobacco-use cessation, and in raising young tobacco-users’ interests in cessation. Short-term goals and suggested approaches are outlined below. (These goals and approaches are suggestions for actions that will lead toward the ten year goal; they are not intended to be all-inclusive.)