Preventing 3 Million Premature Deaths and Helping 5 Million Smokers Quit: A National Action Plan for Tobacco Cessation

Abstract

In August 2002, the Subcommittee on Cessation of the Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health (ICSH) was charged with developing recommendations to substantially increase rates of tobacco cessation in the United States. The subcommittee's report, A National Action Plan for Tobacco Cessation, outlines 10 recommendations for reducing premature morbidity and mortality by helping millions of Americans stop using tobacco. The plan includes both evidence-based, population-wide strategies designed to promote cessation (e.g., a national quitline network) and a Smokers' Health Fund to finance the programs (through a 2 US dollar per pack excise tax increase). The subcommittee report was presented to the ICSH (February 11, 2003), which unanimously endorsed sending it to Secretary Thompson for his consideration. In this article, we summarize the national action plan.

The pediatric residency training on tobacco project: Four-year resident outcome findings

“…The latter is consistent with calls for training medical students and residents in tobacco prevention and control (Fiore, et al, 2004). A survey of pediatric residency training directors showed that most training programs do not include tobacco in their curriculum (Hymowitz, et al, 2001a), and training directors share the same concerns about addressing tobacco as their colleagues.…”

“…Collins, et al, 2007). Missed opportunities to intervene on tobacco in pediatric settings represent a gap in our nation's antismoking armamentarium (Fiore, et al, 2004). …”

Long-term Retention of Smoking Cessation Counseling Skills Learned in the First Year of Medical School

“…The National Action Plan for Tobacco Cessation recommended that competency in tobacco dependence interventions be a core graduation requirement for all new physicians. 18,21 As medical schools increasingly incorporate smoking cessation counseling curricula and assessments, it is important to have evidence to demonstrate that counseling skills are retained. It has previously been demonstrated that first-year medical students can effectively learn smoking cessation counseling skills through enhanced curricula, 22,23 but retention has been less well studied.…”

Implementing point of care “e-referrals” in 137 clinics to increase access to a quit smoking internet system: the Quit-Primo and National Dental PBRN HI-QUIT Studies

“…Smoking is the most important preventable cause of premature death in the USA [1][2][3][4][5]. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that the medical costs of treating smokers is more than US$96 billion a year including another US$97 billion a year from lost productivity [6].…”

“…To impact national cessation rates, smoking cessation support must be widely disseminated and readily available [8]. Easily accessible public health interventions, like quitlines and quit smoking Internet systems, may improve smoking cessation rates [3,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15], but are under-utilized [16]. New methods are needed to proactively recruit smokers to these available, effective smoking cessation systems.…”