Creating Positive Behavior Change Among Teens Who Smoke

Audience: Individuals from local public health agencies with direct contact with the public and conversations on tobacco cessation related to youth. Individuals working on community efforts around comprehensive youth tobacco policies including possession and access. 

Key Points: 1. The N-O-T Program, when implemented in a high school or youth serving organization, facilitates positive behavior change to support and help youth who want to quit smoking.  N-O-T Program evaluation results will be shared.  2. To change youth smoking statistics communities could complement youth prevention efforts by providing youth cessation.  Successful cessation interventions include both effective cessation programming and comprehensive policy with efforts in the home, school, and community that create an environment which supports positive behavior change. 

Educational Experience: Provide program evaluation results, share anecdotal information and examples of behavior change in communities around Colorado, and reveal the available resource of the American Lung Association’s Not on Tobacco teen smoking cessation program and show how it can fit into a comprehensive tobacco control program.

Benefits: About a quarter of the nation's teens currently smoke and recent data shows this number  holding steady.  The Colorado N-O-T Program reaches over a thousand teens a year.  ALAC is looking critically at the symbiotic relationship the N-O-T program has with other elements of a comprehensive tobacco control program including adult cessation, smoke-free homes and workplaces, tobacco-free schools, and youth access policies.  The audience can examine a role in a multi-dimensional effort to create a culture within families, schools, and communities that supports smoke-free lives.