Implementation Goals & Objectives

Short-Term Implementation Goals

• Increase access to effective science-based tobacco-use cessation interventions and services appropriate for youth.
• Increase the capacity and capability to deliver effective youth tobacco-use cessation interventions and services.

Overview

The purpose of the short-term implementation goals is to increase the availability and delivery of effective science-based tobacco-use cessation interventions and services. The implementation objectives articulated here are intended to support the development of systematic approaches to providing the best available programs, services, and broader interventions. Addressing the need for delivery of programs and services must begin now, even as standard guidelines and definitions of program effectiveness are being developed.

Addressing the Short-Term Goals: Two Year Implementation Objectives

Note: The Two-Year Implementation Objectives have been revised. See the revised goals for 2005 to 2007 »

Increasing Access to Effective Interventions:

• Assemble and promote a menu of available, effective cessation tools, services, and interventions appropriate for a variety of settings; analyze this menu to identify gaps, and advocate for intervention and replication research to fill the gaps.
• Advocate for funding for evaluation of existing cessation interventions.
• Develop and promote the use of quality control strategies in the delivery of cessation interventions. Investigate the value and process for establishing accreditation programs.
• Advocate for including tobacco-use cessation interventions as a component of comprehensive community-based programs (e.g. comprehensive substance abuse programs).
• Promote the use of school health programs that include tobacco-use cessation. Build upon mandated services to young tobacco users in various settings, including schools.

Building Infrastructure:

• Advocate for the financial support of youth cessation programs and services as part of the funding that states receive through the Master Settlement Agreement.
• Develop interim criteria for assessing effectiveness of existing cessation interventions until guidelines become available. Develop a strategic approach for the creation of formal guidelines on youth cessation.
• Establish criteria for moving an intervention from a research status into broad dissemination. Establish and continue to support mechanisms and partnerships to infuse new interventions into the marketplace as they become available.
• Begin to identify and disseminate best practices in youth cessation through literature reviews, meta-analysis, and program reviews; identify information regarding ineffective cessation strategies. Disseminate findings.
• Identify promising delivery settings, including schools, colleges, after-school and community-based settings, work places, telephone counseling hotlines, and health care providers. Identify and address barriers to delivery (e.g. systems-level changes needed such as reimbursement to health care providers for the delivery of cessation treatment, and support for school-based services.)
• Establish a network (incorporating existing mechanisms where possible) to provide technical assistance, training, incentives (if needed), and access to effective, appropriate cessation programs in order to ensure availability in a variety of settings.

Addressing the Short-Term Goals: Five Year Implementation Objectives

Increasing Access to Effective Cessation Interventions:

• Continue to monitor and evaluate diffusion efforts to determine what interventions are being offered, where, and to whom. Make tracking information available to those seeking information about cessation interventions, and update the menu of available interventions.
• Facilitate youth access to effective cessation interventions through partnerships with youth leaders, health care providers, schools, and other gatekeepers.
• Establish formal clinical practice guidelines for youth tobacco-use cessation.
• Develop guidance for schools regarding what they should provide to support cessation. Increase the number of schools and organizations providing or offering access to effective cessation services.
• Fund the adaptation of interventions in new populations or settings to ensure that there are effective cessation interventions available for diverse types of youth and types of tobacco use.

Building Infrastructure:

• Establish standard definitions of program effectiveness and guidelines for best practices which, among other things, address cultural and developmental appropriateness.
• Establish and continue to support a pool of program evaluation data across funders and other agencies and organizations.
• Continue to support technical assistance, training, incentives (if needed), and access to effective, appropriate cessation interventions, to ensure availability in a variety of settings.

Addressing the Long-Term Goal: Ten Year Implementation Objectives

• Ensure the integration of youth cessation guidelines into existing guidelines that address adolescent health.
• Continue to facilitate youth access to effective cessation interventions through partnerships with youth leaders, health care providers, schools, and other gatekeepers.
• Continue to monitor emerging interventions, and revise the menu of what is recommended when warranted.
• Continue to monitor and evaluate diffusion efforts to determine what interventions and services are being offered and where, as well as who is using them.