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Helping Young Smokers Quit:
Identifying Best Practices for Tobacco Cessation

The Helping Young Smokers Quit initiative is a two-phase project that addresses the critical need to disseminate effective, developmentally appropriate cessation programs for adolescent smokers. While a growing number of teen cessation programs are available, little is known about: how many programs exist, where they are located, what services they offer, what populations they serve, or how they provide treatment. Moreover, only a handful of such programs have been evaluated. The HYSQ initiative has two primary aims:

1. Identify and describe tobacco treatment programs available to youth across the United States, and  
2. Evaluate smoking cessation programs that are tailored for youth to help understand what works. 

Phase I addresses the first aim through a national survey of existing adolescent cessation programs, and in Phase II, longitudinal program evaluations are being conducted in response to the overarching question: "what program component, process, and contextual factors are associated with increased recruitment, retention and quit rates?" 

The HYSQ initiative works to fill a gap in knowledge about the numbers and distribution of youth cessation programs, as well as the types of treatment approaches and program components that are currently offered across the U.S. It will identify effective program models and promising directions for future research. Findings will help states, communities, schools and other community-based and youth-serving organizations adopt and implement programs that work, and provide standards and tools for self-evaluations. 

Helping Young Smokers Quit: Identifying Best Practices for Tobacco Cessation is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Program directed by Susan J. Curry, PhD out of the Institute for Health Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The program is co-funded by the National Cancer Institute-Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, Tobacco Control Branch, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-Office on Smoking and Health.

The HYSQ initiative is major effort working toward meeting the goals of the Youth Tobacco Cessation Collaborative, as presented in the National Blueprint for Action: Youth and Young Adult Tobacco-Use Cessation.