The fight against teen smoking- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
The fight against teen smoking- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
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January 14, 2000
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In This Issue:
Legacy of leader lives on in Thomson scholars
The fight against teen smoking
Medical Staff Organization Officers Announced
Boston Marathon Preparations
Perks
BWH Holidays
Hold These Dates!
Awards
While the numbers of adults who smoke has generally decreased over the last decade, young people nationwide represent a steadily growing group of smokers. While between 1991 and 1997 the percentage of adults who smoked decreased from 25.7 percent to 23.2 percent, smoking among high school students rose from 27.5 percent to 36.4 percent. The Teen Smoking Cessation Project (TSCP), a collaborative effort at English High School in Boston, is working to reverse this alarming trend. The project brings together staff from the Teen Health Center (a program of Brookside Community Health Center located at English High that provides health care and counseling services to students), school nurses, faculty, and administrators, as well as students, staff at Brookside, the Boston Tobacco Control Program, and Simmons College to tackle teen smoking through education and support services. TCSP took a survey of students last June that showed that of the students who responded, 17.9 percent were current smokers and 10.9 percent were former smokers. According to the survey, students smoke because of peer pressure and stress, but nearly 20 percent of smokers said they would take advantage of a school-sponsored program to stop smoking. Says Jo-Anne Dillman, Nurse Practitioner and Program Manager of the Teen Health Center, “Traditional prevention efforts like lectures in health class are not having the desired effect. The Teen Smoking Cessation Project takes a new approach to the problem. Lectures have been replaced by informational fairs where students work with staff to talk to other students about smoking. In addition, students organize other awareness-raising activities, such as poster contests and articles written for school publications. New smoking cessation policies proposed by the Teen Smoking Cessation Project give students caught smoking on school grounds a new choice—detention or smoking education and counseling.” So many students have decided to seek help that Andy Diaz-Ramos, Brookside’s Smoking Cessation Coordinator, now spends one day a week at the Teen Health Center at English High School, counseling both students and teachers in individual and group settings. “The goal of the project is to encourage those who smoke to stop and to discourage others in starting to smoke”, says Dillman. “This goal will be accomplished by staff and students working together to provide smoking cessation education and support. This is a long-term effort, as with any behavior change effort, but by treating smoking as a public health problem rather than as a disciplinary problem and giving students the opportunity to teach and support each other, we will make a difference.”