Across Vermont, the number of youth (14-17 years old) who smoke has remained steady at 16 percent for the past five years, after falling sharply from 38 percent to 16 percent in the decade leading up to 2005.
 
To support these older teens, Burlington Partership for a Healthy Community is reaching out to area youth to help them stop smoking, or to never start. Partnering with the Vermont Department of Health and OVX (Our Voices Xposed), a youth-led, youth-run movement focused on exposing the truth about tobacco, BPHC is supporting a new statewide educational campaign to help youth stay smoke free.
 
In Burlington, BPHC will be reaching out to teens at the Boys and Girls Club and the Miller Center Teen groups on Wednesday evening, March 23rd at 6:30pm to unveil a Graffitti Wall the teens have been contributing to all week about why they want to quit smoking, why they don't smoke or other healthy activities they can do instead of smoking.  This event takes place on Kick Butts Day where thousands of youth in every state and around the world will STAND OUT ... SPEAK UP ... and SEIZE CONTROL AGAINST BIG TOBACCO.
 
“We’re excited to see the push to help youth who are struggling to be smoke-free,” said Mariah Sanderson, BPHC Coalition Coordinator. “When we connect teens with healthy alternatives – athletics, music, theater, community service – they’ve been able to turn away from tobacco.”
 
Research shows that youth understand that smoking is bad for them, but knowing it is an unhealthy choice isn’t enough. Many teens lack the support to stay smoke-free, especially when they are surrounded by adults and peers who smoke. With this in mind, the Vermont Department of Health interviewed teens from around the state about smoking issues, as part of the development process for the new campaign. Other key findings include:
 
o    Anti-tobacco education and advertising typically focuses on preventing youth from starting to smoke. Young people who’ve tried smoking feel that the anti-smoking outreach doesn’t apply to them.
o    If youth stop smoking, they fear that they’ll lose their connection to friends and family who also smoke.
o    Youth smokers need help finding appropriate resources to help them quit.
 
“In the long-term, we’ve been successful in reducing the numbers of youth smokers by encouraging them to never start,” said Health Commissioner Harry Chen, MD. “Now that we’ve reached a certain level we need to go beyond traditional prevention messages, to help teens who have just started occasional smoking, but are not yet committed smokers.”
 
 Drawing insights for the education and outreach materials from interviews and video diaries created by teens, the Health Department developed two new 30-second television ads for the “Gut Feelings” campaign that show a group of teens talking to each other about smoking while posing as lungs, a brain and a stomach. Both “Taco” and “Pickles” use humor and group dynamics to get teens to quit while they’re ahead, before they are addicted and committed smokers. Characters from the campaign also can be found on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lungs/122011807870985).
 
To learn more about the support available for teens who want to quit smoking, visit www.ovx.org. For more information on the Health Department’s Tobacco Control Program go to HealthVermont.gov/prevent/tobacco.