Advancing Tobacco Control Through Evidence-Based Programs

Overview

In the Surgeon General's report, Reducing Tobacco Use, former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher noted that "Our lack of greater progress in tobacco control is more the result of our failure to implement proven strategies than it is the lack of knowledge about what to do."¹ The report provides a complete analysis of five major approaches to reducing tobacco use: educational, clinical, regulatory, economic, and comprehensive. The authors of the report concluded that the comprehensive approach, which involves the synergistic coordination of the other major approaches, has been most successful in reducing tobacco use, and that statewide comprehensive approaches were particularly effective. They estimated that if the strategies shown to be effective were fully implemented, the rates of tobacco use, both among young people and among adults, could be cut in half by 2010.² In an independent analysis, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) also concluded that comprehensive state tobacco control programs can reduce rates of smoking and save lives.³

The conclusions of the Surgeon General's report and the IOM report are thus consistent: comprehensive statewide tobacco control programs work. Recommended strategies for implementing such programs can be found in Reducing Tobacco Use (www.cdc.gov/tobacco)² and Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs (www.cdc.gov/tobacco)⁴ from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and on the Web sites of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services (www.thecommunityguide.org)⁵ and the Surgeon General (www.surgeongeneral.gov/tobacco/smokesum.htm).⁶ The proven strategies discussed in these sources provide a strong foundation for action at the state and local levels. Possible funding sources for comprehensive state tobacco control programs include money from the settlement of the states' lawsuits against the tobacco industry, state excise tax revenues, general state funds, and federal and private sources.

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