Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Smoking Cessation & Prevention

Smoking prevention and cessation among youth

The impact of smoking prevention and cessation interventions among adolescents is not well understood. Given the availability of smoking cessation medications for the large number of addicted youth, it is important to see if the youth is opting for smoking cessation interventions. Research on smoking prevention programs and smoking cessation medications tailored to youth should be a high priority.

Youth smoking prevention

Some of the programs geared towards tobacco prevention and control in youth include peer-based interventions, community interventions, computer-based systems, penalties for possession and use, school policies, vendor penalties, clean indoor air laws and interventions that focus on adolescent risk taking or problem behaviors. However, little or no data is available currently that shows if these programs are effective or not.

Youth smoking cessation

It is important to tailor smoking cessation prevention programs and make them more ‘youth-centric’. The present smoking cessation programs and help are not structured keeping the youth in mind. The reasons for which adults and adolescents smoke are different; therefore, the focus of programs should be different too. There are many smoking aids such as nicotine replacement therapies, hypnosis and medications that help adults in smoking cessation. It is important to impart knowledge to the youth about benefits of giving up smoking and give them easy tips on how to give up smoking to help them get better results.

How to give up smoking?

Teenagers and adolescents may not take health benefits of smoking cessation as seriously as adults. The focus for them should be on other aspects of smoking cessation effects. Giving up smoking effects can be felt on their personal relationships with their friends and dates, their prospects to get a good career and job and other aspects such as money saving. It is important to highlight the socio-economic benefits of quitting smoking in order to influence the youth to opt for smoking cessation.

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