 | > | Family |
| > | Partners |
| > | Community |
| > | Web Links |
| > | General |
Mailman School
of Public Health
Columbia University
722 West 168th Street,
8th Floor
New York, NY 10032
 |
 |
 |
|
Growing up tobacco free: Preventing nicotine addiction in children and youths Committee on Preventing Nicotine Addiction in Children and Youths, Division of Biobehavioral Sciences and Mental Disorders, Institute of Medicine This committee considers the variable success of policies and programs that aim to lower nicotine addiction among children and youths, and recommends practical strategies. Most tobacco addiction occurs in smokers who began using tobacco products before age 18. Tobacco use causes about 30 percent of all deaths to people ages 35-69. Given these facts and the rising level of nicotine addiction worldwide, the report first explores the nature of nicotine addition, historical attitudes to tobacco use, and its advertising and promotion. It then reviews policies and programs to limit or prevent tobacco use: taxes; controlling youth access; regulating labeling, packaging, and contents; and education and behavioral change activities. Successful research-based programs that prevent or stop tobacco use among children and youth are based in schools and communities or are aimed at individual children. They rely on developing interpersonal "life" skills to resist the social environmental influences that lead young people to smoke; start before high school; address the social context for tobacco product use including peer groups; feature follow-up sessions; and involve parents, schools, community organizations, and social influences, legal actions, and local media. Earlier strategies, such as providing negative information about tobacco or only building individual self-esteem proved ineffective in preventing or ceasing tobacco use among children and adolescents - although adults may respond positively to these approaches. The committee singles out the use of smokeless tobacco products as particularly difficult to attack because of widespread misconceptions about their safety and social acceptability, and the ease with which they can be used surreptitiously. The report calls for more research on the nature of nicotine addiction and the social factors that lead to declines in smoking, with particular attention to ethnic, gender, and social class differences, and regional and cultural variations. It also calls for greater attention to public education, especially mass media campaigns; expanding and enforcing tobacco-free public areas; giving states more regulatory authority and funding to limit tobacco advertising and promotion and to implement other prevention efforts; and integrating successful school-based programs into comprehensive efforts, including implementing Centers for Disease Control guidelines on tobacco use prevention. It also recommends increasing taxes on tobacco products, setting the same high sales prices in military and nonmilitary outlets, and limiting tobacco product outlets in general. It suggests using the influence of the federal government to induce states and localities to seek and enforce anti-tobacco policies for youths, including banning vending machines, single cigarette sales, and free product distribution. Offenses should be made civil rather than criminal.
National Academy Press
|
|
Disclaimer Free To Grow is a national program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with direction and technical assistance provided by the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. |