Support and Demand Goals & Objectives

Short-Term Support and Demand Goals

• Advocate for policies and environments that support youth tobacco use cessation.
• Increase support for youth tobacco-use cessation among providers, decision-makers, and community gatekeepers.
• Increase public and peer support for youth tobacco-use cessation, and generate interest and participation in cessation attempts among young tobacco users.

Overview

Increasing demand for youth tobacco-use cessation interventions and services includes both increasing support for this issue among key stakeholders and the general public, and increasing interest in quitting (i.e. demand for services) among young tobacco users. This may require market research to identify the best strategies for increasing support and demand within the following sectors:

Decision-makers: It is important to build support for a range of environmental, policy, and programmatic interventions to raise youth interest in and motivation toward quitting, and to increase social support for cessation. Leaders outside of tobacco control can help to implement policies that make broader interventions widely available to youth. Examples of decision- makers and the actions they can take include:

• Legislators: effect increases in tobacco taxes;
• Health care industry decision-makers: implement supportive policies, such as inclusion of youth cessation services in performance measures (e.g., NCQA’s HEDIS report cards);
• Health plan decision-makers: provide coverage for tobacco use treatment;
• Workplace decision-makers: institute policies, programs, and incentives to support cessation and smoke-free environments.

Community Providers and Gatekeepers: At the community level, health care practitioners and gatekeepers must support cessation interventions as a core component, along with prevention, of an integrated model designed to protect youth from the consequences of tobacco use. They must also recognize their roles in making programs, services, and interventions available to the youth with whom they are in contact. Examples of practitioners and gatekeepers and the ways in which they can contribute to protecting youth include:

• Providers of mandatory cessation programs: extend services to those students who may want to attend programs voluntarily;
• Pediatric service providers: urge cessation and refer tobacco users to effective treatment programs and services;
• School systems and school-based health centers: support the establishment of tobacco-use cessation programs for students and staff;
• College administrators: support tobacco-free campus policies as well as provide or refer to effective programs and services;
• Youth groups, youth service agencies, and related community groups: advocate for and/or provide support for cessation programs, services, and policies.

Youth: There is a need to increase interest in quitting among youth. This will require applied research to identify what motivational approaches will work among different types of tobacco users and under different circumstances. There is also a need to identify whether and how peers can support cessation among young tobacco users.

General Public: Finally, there is a need to raise the public’s awareness of young tobacco users’ interests in quitting, and their relative lack of success in doing so. Public support and demand are needed to increase and sustain attention to this issue among funders, policy-makers, and other stakeholders. Messages need to be designed for the public to increase support for cessation attempts by young tobacco users. The potential role(s) of family members and peers in encouraging youth to quit will need to be identified through applied research.

Research Community: It is important that researchers be made aware of the needs and opportunities for basic and applied research in youth tobacco-use cessation, and that they be encouraged to engage in cessation-related research.

Addressing the Short-Term Goals: Two Year Support and Demand Objectives

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

Encouraging Policies:

• Conduct applied research to identify policies that affect tobacco use and cessation (e.g., taxation, school policies).
• Advocate for making tobacco-use cessation programs available as alternatives to suspension or other punitive measures for youth caught using tobacco products.

Motivating Involvement and Support:

• Conduct needs assessments for youth tobacco-use cessation interventions and services among decision-makers, health care providers, community gatekeepers, and youth, paying particular attention to differences among youth by age, sex, race/ethnicity, geographic location, social group, type of tobacco use, and so on.
• Raise awareness of the importance of youth tobacco-use cessation, focusing on the identification of salient messages targeted separately for youth, the general public, healthcare providers, community gatekeepers, and decision-makers.
• Identify community and professional organizations in contact with youth and establish partnerships.

Increasing Public Interest and Support:

• Conduct research to identify natural transitions in adolescence (e.g., from school to work force) and other opportunities (e.g. during sports physicals) where youth might be more likely to consider quitting.
• Conduct applied research to identify parental, familial, and peer roles in motivating youth quit attempts.
• Market effective cessation programs and services through the establishment and support of mechanisms directed at youth in a variety of settings, and also through mechanism stakeholders and partners.
• Begin to synthesize and disseminate findings from market research (surveys) to guide demand strategy development.

Addressing the Short-Term Goals: Five Year Support and Demand Objectives

Encouraging Policies:

• Develop a plan for implementing policies (including reimbursement for treatment or other policies that reduce cost barriers) that positively affect youth tobacco-use cessation.

Motivating Involvement and Support:

• Facilitate the development of grassroots advocacy around the issue be creating resources (e.g., a community assessment tool), by supporting a center for information dissemination, and by creating opportunities for networking.
• Encourage community and professional organizations to invest in raising awareness among their peers.

Increasing Public Interest and Support:

• Develop, market, and track the effects of messages through mass media and other channels to raise awareness in the following areas:
  • The importance of youth tobacco-use cessation (the problem of youth nicotine addiction and the benefits of cessation);
  • The full spectrum of available interventions;
  • The effects of policies on youth cessation attempts and successes.

Addressing the Long-Term Goal: Ten Year Support and Demand Objectives

• Implement and continue to support sustained policies that positively effect youth cessation.
• Create infrastructures to conduct ongoing market research and marketing to support youth tobacco-use cessation among each of the key audiences (decision-makers, providers and gatekeepers, researchers, youth, and the public.
• Support the placement of advocates for youth tobacco-use cessation in key roles, such as in youth, provider, and community organizations.
• Continue to provide relevant, current messages and up-to-date information to each of the key audiences (youth, the public, providers and gatekeepers, researchers, and decision-makers).