Course Director: Jon Ebbert M.D. and Timothy J. Milbrandt, M.S.

March 28, 2025 - Phoenix, Arizona

Broadcast in Mountain Time

With the rapid increase in the use of new and emerging tobacco and nicotine products among young people over the past decade, the development of accessible, appealing, and scalable tobacco cessation interventions has become a public health priority. There is no safe level of nicotine use for young people. This workshop from Truth Initiative, the leading non-profit public health organization dedicated to preventing tobacco use among young people and empowering cessation for people of all ages, will address tobacco prevention and cessation efforts for teens and young adults. Dr. Barbara Schillo will provide an overview of the shifting tobacco product landscape and prevalence of tobacco and nicotine product use among young people. Megan Jacobs will describe Truth Initiative’s efforts to develop cessation treatment programs for adolescents and young adults. She will address youth and young adult mindsets around tobacco use and cessation, including why they start, why they quit, and what challenges they typically encounter. Dr. Amanda Graham will present the results of two randomized clinical trials to evaluate the effectiveness of Truth Initiative’s youth-focused cessation programs and place these findings in the context of the most recent scientific literature. Following a short break, Liz Kenny and Dr. Jessica Rath will describe the development of a public education campaign specifically targeting young adults to promote Truth Initiative’s free, nationally available digital tobacco cessation program. They will review the formative research process that informed the campaign, present early results of multifaceted efforts to craft a culture of quitting for young people and describe how clinicians can leverage this program in their work with young people. Lastly, Alex Parks will describe the development and implementation of an evidence-based vaping prevention curriculum and proven implementation strategies to drive uptake among schools and students.