Tobacco Prevention & Control Program Priorities and Highlights

Program Priorities

The Tobacco Prevention & Education Program (TPEP) is the Hawaii state government's program addressing tobacco control in Hawaii. It has modeled its priorities on the CDC's four goal areas for comprehensive tobacco control programs:

1. Preventing initiation of tobacco use among youth and young adults;
2. Promoting quitting among adults and youth;
3. Eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke; and
4. Identifying and eliminating tobacco-related disparities among population groups.

Prevention: Preventing and eliminating tobacco use among young people are the standards for success in changing the social environment and creating a statewide norm where tobacco use becomes an unacceptable behavior. The current model begins with increasing young people's knowledge of the dangers of tobacco use, changing their attitudes toward tobacco use, and increasing public support for policies that reduce the likelihood that young people will use tobacco. Interventions to prevent tobacco-use initiation need to support tobacco-free norms. Community programs, school-based policies and interventions, increasing the price of tobacco products, sustaining anti-tobacco media campaigns, reducing illegal tobacco sales to minors, countering pro-tobacco marketing, and engaging youth in tobacco control efforts are all strategies use for preventing the initiation of tobacco use among Hawaii's youth.

Promoting Quitting (Cessation): Tobacco dependence often requires repeated interventions and multiple quit attempts. Interventions that increase the success of quitting attempts can decrease premature mortality and tobacco-related health care costs. Tobacco dependence treatments such as counseling and the use of pharmacotherapy have been shown to be effective across a broad range of populations. Tobacco use screening in combination with brief interventions by clinicians, quit lines, pharmacotherapy, and other culturally appropriate interventions including group support, individual cessation counseling, integrated clinical services with medical evaluation and pharmacologic intervention, peer educated/trained support, and multi-language materials are all strategies used to promote tobacco cessation among adults and youth in Hawaii.

Eliminating Exposure to Secondhand Smoke: Secondhand smoke is a mixture of sidestream smoke and exhaled smoke in the air. It contains over 4,000 compounds, more than 40 carcinogens and other irritants and toxins. It has been shown to cause a variety of diseases. There is no safe level of secondhand smoke, and the only way to provide protection is to eliminate it. Increasing the knowledge of the risks and dangers of secondhand smoke through educational campaigns, expansion of policies to prohibit and restrict exposure to secondhand smoke, and enforcement of established smokefree policies currently in place are strategies that are used to eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke in Hawaii.

Eliminating Tobacco-Related Disparities: Despite significant gains in Hawaii, some populations experience a disproportionate health and economic burden from tobacco use. A higher rate of smoking in disparate communities is attributed to a complex interaction of multiple factors (i.e. socioeconomic status, cultural characteristics, acculturation, stress, biologic elements, targeted advertising, price of tobacco products, and varying capacities of communities to mount effective tobacco control initiatives. Expanding surveillance mechanisms to asses factors that affect tobacco related disparities, and developing community-based capacity to address these disparities are some of the efforts undertaken to eliminate tobacco-related disparities in Hawaii.

Program Accomplishments

The most important tobacco control accomplishments in Hawaii over the past five years include:

In addition to strong state policies, successful programs continue to provide services to Hawaii's communities. There are many agencies and organizations in Hawaii that participate in the broad-based efforts against tobacco addiction.

Community programs directed at youth usage and cessation, the Hawaii Tobacco Quitline, REAL (Hawaii's Youth Movement Exposing the Tobacco Industry), and the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaii are some major partners who have played an important role in tobacco prevention and control in Hawaii.