Objective: The CEASE (Communities Engaged and Advocating for a Smoke-free Environment) youth summer program was designed to aid a needs assessment to capture youths' perspectives, knowledge, and attitudes towards tobacco products to inform the development of appropriate resources for youth-targeted tobacco prevention and control.

Methods: Middle and High schoolers ages 14-18 were eligible to participate in the program. Due to COVID-19, the month-long program was delivered virtually through 2-hour sessions twice a week (total of nine sessions including the orientation). The program sessions covered several topics including tobacco and nicotine product use, marketing, health effects, social and environmental influences.

Results: There were 18 participants (referred to as youth ambassadors) between the ages of 14 to 17 years in the grade level of 8-12. Of these, 10 were females and 8 were males; all participants were black/AA. Data was obtained to understand their knowledge and attitudes towards tobacco product, social media promotion, marketing, interpersonal factors (peer pressure, role of family and schools), societal factors (role of community), and policy regulations. The participants discussed and reported that the tobacco industry has targeted youth in various ways through social media and advertisements and provided recommendations of an ideal tobacco cessation strategies and program.

Conclusion: Partnering with the youth is an effective way to address the problems related to the emerging trends related to youth tobacco use.