National Youth Tobacco Survey - Part I
By the time he was old enough to drive a car, Dustin Zahursky of Bismarck, North Dakota, had been smoking for more than a quarter of his life. “I’d seen cigarettes advertised on billboards and in magazines for as long as I could remember,” Dustin says. “I started smoking at age 12. It was the cool thing to do.” Then in 11th grade, he was kicked off his high school wrestling team for chewing tobacco.
For the veteran wrestler and sports enthusiast, this dismissal was his wake up call. “I went ‘cold turkey,’ began reading motivational books and concentrated on developing a healthy lifestyle,” he says. He began to feel better about himself and wanted to share his experience with others. “I heard about the American Legacy Foundation, and I got in touch with them in the fall of l999 to see what I could do to help other teens stop using tobacco.”
Established as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement among U.S. Attorneys General and tobacco manufacturers, the American Legacy Foundation works to decrease tobacco use among all ages and populations. Dustin volunteered to work on the Legacy Foundation’s “Truth Campaign,” which he describes as “an anti-tobacco youth movement, by teens for teens.” Today, he speaks to students on high school and college campuses, spreading the word that tobacco use is not only not “cool” - it can be deadly.
“We are educating kids about tobacco and how tobacco companies have manipulated young people by targeting us in their ads,” says Dustin, now a junior at the University of Mary in Bismarck. “I don’t think they care about us. And it’s time we fight back with the truth.”
CDC Foundation Helps Get the Word Out About Tobacco - Part II
When the American Legacy Foundation was established in 1998, it identified as one of its key goals “to reduce youth tobacco use.” Before Legacy could design media campaigns and education programs targeting youths, however, the new organization had to gather information about teen smoking habits. But it was faced with a dilemma: no comprehensive youth tobacco surveillance system existed to collect these important data.
Determined not to let this become a setback, the Legacy Foundation began talking with CDC to see if the groups could work together to quickly complete a school based survey. Researchers at CDC were also interested in data on youth smoking and tobacco knowledge but could not gather this information easily because the agency had no appropriated funding for a national survey.
Looking for potential solutions, the groups approached the CDC Foundation for help. Because of the Foundation’s unique independent, non-profit status, it was able to serve as the coordinator of the project, working with government scientists to provide technical support and hiring an outside contractor, Macro International, Inc., to conduct the survey. The Legacy Foundation provided the funding. With the CDC Foundation’s swift implementation of the project, The National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) was completed within several months, and data were collected, analyzed and reported by the end of the year - in time for Legacy to launch its planned media campaign in early 2000.
“What we learn from the National Youth Tobacco Survey helps to make the case for the importance of tobacco prevention programs aimed at young people,” says Cheryl Healton, Dr.P.H., CEO of the American Legacy Foundation. “What we learned by linking with the CDC Foundation to conduct the survey is that we have a powerful partner.”
The NYTS response rate was extremely high - 90 percent of the schools responded, and over 90 percent of the students in the schools surveyed participated. The information collected was the first-ever nationally representative data on tobacco use among middle school students. The survey was also the first to gather information on the most widely used tobacco products and to provide some racially and ethnically specific data.
“This survey includes very importnt data on the factors that actually contribute to changes in prevalence of tobacco use - such as attitudes and knowledge, exposure to tobacco and second-hand smoke, desire for cessation programs, and a school curriculum with anti-smoking messages that might be taught to youngsters,” says demographer Wick Warren, Ph.D., who works in CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. “The National Youth Tobacco Survey was again conducted during spring 2000; we hope to collect national data every two years to track what is happening with tobacco use among youths. These data are extremely important for the national tobacco prevention and control program, because they are the best means for evaluating the program’s effectiveness.”