CONCLUSIONS
- The targets of recent interventions to control tobacco
use are social networks that shape the attitudes of
individual smokers and nonsmokers, including media,
health care providers, worksites, and schools.
- The use of media in tobacco control includes providing
information on the risks of tobacco use and dangers of
policies that promote tobacco use, motivation smokers to
stop and others to not start, and conducting cessation
programs or recruiting smokers into treatment programs.
- Health care providers should not only intervene with
their smoking patients but also be agents for social
change.
- Restrictions on smoking in the worksite and other
locations change the social acceptability of smoking and
may increase the number of individuals who try to quit
and who have long-term success after cessation.
- Comprehensive smoking control strategies are best
implemented at the local level and can be implemented
through formation of coalitions of established community
groups
- Most adolescent smokers have little difficulty in
purchasing cigarettes, even when these purchases violate
local laws. Increasing the barriers to cigarette
purchases by minors is important in strategies to prevent
the initiation of regular tobacco use.
- Economic incentives that may reduce the consumption of
cigarettes include increasing the excise tax on tobacco
products; preferential hiring and promotion of
non-smokers; and increasing the cost of life, health, and
other forms of insurance for smokers.
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