Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Passive smoking is an important cause of morbidity in children. In 1997, at least 4.5 million U.S. adolescents were cigarette smokers. The American Academy of Pediatrics states that the dangers of active and passive tobacco smoke exposure are well established, and that health care providers should make the elimination of this threat a major issue. Helping parents and teens to quit smoking and helping children and adolescents to resist initiation of smoking are important tasks for public health professionals. On the advice of a health provider, some people will quit smoking. Cessation rates increase when practitioners become more actively involved in counseling, recommending specific strategies and ensuring follow-up. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has developed a series of recommendations to assist practitioners in helping patients to stop smoking. These recommendations include four activities beginning with the letter A: Ask, Advise, Assist, and Arrange. For practitioners who care for children, a fifth recommendation, Anticipate, focuses on smoking prevention, i.e. helping children and teenagers resist the initiation of smoking. We will review strategies for pediatric practitioners about how to integrate counseling about smoking cessation and smoking prevention into practice. We will offer suggestions, further discussed in the American Academy of Pediatrics Handbook of Environmental Health for Children, on implementing the NCI guidelines with parents, children and teenagers.
Learning Objectives: Participant will learn how to integrate counseling about smoking cessation and smoking prevention into clinical practice
Keywords: Smoking, Children's Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: American Academy of Pediatrics
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.