Revised Two-Year Goals & Objectives

Research

GOAL 1: Increase understanding of youth and young adult tobacco experimentation, use, addiction, and cessation.

1. Update the evidence review of the efficacy of pharmacological and behavioral interventions for youth, pregnant teens and young adult smokers.
2. Develop a model of predictors for youth and young adult tobacco use cessation, including environmental and behavioral influences.
3. Identify natural transitions in adolescence and other opportunities where youth and young adults might be more likely to consider quitting.
4. Identify cessation strategies used and/or preferred by youth and young adults across time among different populations.
5. Identify multiple risk factors for youth and young adults.

GOAL 2: Increase national and state-based surveillance of youth and young adult tobacco-use cessation services, behavior (including use of treatments and services) and use of treatments and services, and policies.

1. Identify, assess and recommend current measures on surveys, revise measures or include additional measures, and conduct surveys of youth and young adult tobacco use cessation behaviors.

GOAL 3: Develop and test tobacco-use treatment programs, services, and interventions for youth and young adult.

1. Design and evaluate strategies for recruiting and retaining youth and young adults into cessation programs, and determine intervention studies.
2. Develop standard program for evaluation methods; evaluate the efficacy of various types of services, support and other interventions.
3. Identify cessation strategies that target the needs of youth and young adults in different segments of the population (e.g. ethnicity, pregnant, SES, age, gender, rural, urban, etc).

GOAL 4: Conduct research to improve understanding of policies and environments that affect youth tobacco-use cessation (e.g. taxation, school policies).

1. Conduct an environmental scan to identify existing information on policies that affect youth tobacco use cessation.
2. Conduct analysis about the impact of policies that affect youth and young adult tobacco-use cessation and disseminate these findings.
3. Continue to fund and disseminate research to improve understanding of policies and environments that affect youth tobacco-use cessation.

Implementation

GOAL 1: Increase access to effective science-based tobacco-use cessation interventions and services appropriate for youth and young adults.

1. Assemble and promote a menu of available, effective cessation tools, services, referral resources and interventions appropriate for a variety of settings.
2. Increase funding for evaluation of existing cessation interventions.
3. Increase the availability of school-based cessation services through the promotion of comprehensive tobacco-free school policies.

GOAL 2: Increase the capacity and capability to deliver effective youth and young adult tobacco-cessation interventions and services.

1. Develop and promote the use of quality control strategies in the delivery of cessation interventions.
2. Identify interim criteria for measuring the effectiveness of existing cessation interventions until guidelines become available.
3. Provide support for the adaptation, diffusion, dissemination and promotion of new, effective cessation interventions.
4. Identify and disseminate best practices in implementation of cessation interventions.
5. Establish referral resources to provide technical assistance and training.
6. Promote the incorporation of youth and young adult cessation to existing community-based programs and services.
7. Use advocacy to expand the number of youth and young adult tobacco-use cessation programs that are funded at least in part by the Master Settlement Agreement or earmarks of monies from tobacco excise taxes.

Support and Demand

GOAL 1: Increase support for youth and young adult tobacco-use cessation among providers, decision-makers, and community gatekeepers.

1. Improve understanding of the challenges related to the provision of youth and young adult tobacco-use cessation interventions and services among decision-makers, health care providers, and community gatekeepers.
2. Develop segmented efforts to raise awareness of the importance of youth tobacco-use cessation in the general public (including youth in schools, universities and worksites), and among health care providers, community gatekeepers, and decision-makers.
3. Encourage community-based and professional organizations to raise awareness about the importance of youth tobacco-use cessation.

GOAL 2: Increase public and peer support for youth and young adult tobacco-use cessation, and to generate interest and participation in cessation attempts by tobacco users.

1. Conduct market research to reach and motivate youth to attend evidence-based programs and services.
2. Encourage marketing of evidence-based programs and services as well as policies (e.g. tobacco free schools, price increases and access) to youth and young adults and decision-makers in a variety of settings.
3. Raise the awareness of the availability of quit lines to help youth and young adults quit.
4. Track the effects of messages used in mass media and other channels to raise awareness of (a) the importance of youth and young adult tobacco-use cessation and the problem of youth and young adult nicotine addiction and the benefits of cessation; (b) the full spectrum of available interventions, including quit lines; (c) the effects of policies on youth and young adult tobacco use cessation attempts and successes.