Background: Interventions to prevent smoking uptake or encourage cessation among young persons might help prevent tobaccorelated illness.Purpose: To review the evidence for the efficacy and harms of primary care-relevant interventions that aim to reduce tobacco use among children and adolescents.Data Sources: Three systematic reviews that collectively covered the relevant literature; MEDLINE, PsycINFO, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects through 14 September 2012; and manual searches of reference lists and gray literature.Study Selection: Two investigators independently reviewed 2453 abstracts and 111 full-text articles. English-language trials of behavior-based or medication interventions that were relevant to primary care and reported tobacco use, health outcomes, or harms were included.
Data Extraction:One investigator abstracted data from good-and fair-quality trials into an evidence table, and a second checked these data.Data Synthesis: 19 trials (4 good-quality and 15 fair-quality) that were designed to prevent tobacco use initiation or promote cessation (or both) and reported self-reported smoking status or harms were included. Pooled analyses from a random-effects metaanalysis suggested a 19% relative reduction (risk ratio, 0.81 [95% CI, 0.70 to 0.93]; absolute risk difference, Ϫ0.02 [CI, Ϫ0.03 to 0.00]) in smoking initiation among participants in behavior-based prevention interventions compared with control participants. Neither behavior-based nor bupropion cessation interventions improved cessation rates. Findings about the harms related to bupropion use were mixed.
Limitations:No studies reported health outcomes. Interventions and measures were heterogeneous. Most trials examined only cigarette smoking. The body of evidence was largely published 5 to 15 years ago.
Conclusion:Primary care-relevant interventions may prevent smoking initiation over 12 months in children and adolescents.
Primary Funding Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.Ann Intern Med. 2013;158:253-260. www.annals.org For author affiliations, see end of text. This article was published at www.annals.org on 11 December 2012. T obacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. An estimated 443 000 deaths occur annually that are attributable to smoking (1). Despite the fact that the legal age for purchasing tobacco products in the United States is 18 years (2), every day more than 3800 children and adolescents aged 12 to 17 years have their first cigarette, and an estimated 1000 young persons begin smoking on a daily basis (3). In 2011, 23.4% of high school students reported that they currently used a tobacco product (4,5).Reducing the prevalence of youth tobacco use can occur through 2 primary means: by decreasing the proportion of nonusing children who initiate tobacco use or by increasing the proportion of current users who quit. These strategies can occur within large community environments (mass media campaigns or state-level ...