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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General

About this resource:

HHS Non-systematic Review

Source: Office of the Surgeon General, 2012

Last Reviewed: 2012

Workgroups: Tobacco Use Workgroup, Cancer Workgroup

This report describes the tobacco use epidemic among youth ages 12 to 17 and young adults ages 18 to 25. It covers the science base on issues including:

  • Social, biological, and environmental factors that influence young people to use tobacco
  • The biologic processes that happen as people progress from experimentation to addiction
  • Other health effects of tobacco use
  • The epidemiology of youth and young adult tobacco use
  • Proven, evidence-based interventions to prevent young people from starting tobacco use

Tobacco use poses a serious health threat to youth and young adults and will affect our future public and economic health.

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Objectives related to this resource (9)

Reduce current tobacco use in adolescents — TU‑04
LHI label
Getting worse
Reduce current e-cigarette use in adolescents — TU‑05
Little or no detectable change
Reduce current cigarette smoking in adolescents — TU‑06
Target met or exceeded
Reduce current cigar smoking in adolescents — TU‑07
Improving
Reduce current use of flavored tobacco products in adolescents who use tobacco — TU‑09
Baseline only
Eliminate cigarette smoking initiation in adolescents and young adults — TU‑10
Improving
Reduce the proportion of people who don't smoke but are exposed to secondhand smoke — TU‑19
Little or no detectable change
Reduce the proportion of adolescents exposed to tobacco marketing — TU‑22
Little or no detectable change
Reduce the lung cancer death rate — C‑02
Improving

Suggested Citation

1.

National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health. (2012). Preventing tobacco use among youth and young adults: A report of the Surgeon General. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK99237/